Licking County residents are turning out in droves to cast their ballots early this election cycle. According to the director of the Licking Board of Elections, Tess Wigginton, there has already been a significant turnout.
On Friday, Oct. 30, Wigginton said nearly 17,000 people had visited the Board of Elections since Oct. 6, when in-person early voting began. Another 10,000 ballots had arrived by mail.
“And for comparison, about 25,000 people voted absentee or early in the last midterm” in 2022, Wigginton said.
Early voting is still available at the Board of Elections office at 20 S. 2nd Street in downtown Newark. On Friday, the office is open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday; and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 1.
Chair of the Licking County Democratic Central Committee Marcia Phelps was surprised by the growing number of voters during this midterm.
“The turnout is overwhelming. It’s just, it’s, it’s monumental,” Phelps said
On Tuesday, Oct. 28, alone, 1,288 people cast their ballots early in the county – a significant spike compared to the average 600 daily voters they were seeing earlier this month, according to data from the Ohio Secretary of State Election Dashboard.
Phelps said it was difficult to pinpoint why there was such a high turnout.
“Because of the high visibility, and things that are being said and done,” Phelps said, “I think people have just decided that we just got to get out and vote.”
Licking County Republican Party Chair Matt Dole said that Republicans in the county are enthusiastic to participate in this upcoming midterm election.
Dole said that, historically, most Republicans prefer to vote on Election Day.
“There was a real movement among Republicans to sort of say, ‘You’re not a real Republican unless you vote on Election Day,’” he said. “In 2024, it really became much more acceptable. The president encouraged people to vote early, and it became ‘culturally acceptable.’”
Dole said he anticipates that a lot of early voters are likely voting Republican, even if they are unaffiliated with the Board of Elections.
“We anticipate because Licking County is a red-leaning state, we anticipate that the independent voters lean Republican. There have been a lot of unaffiliated voters that vote here, and we think that’s good for us because we think they lean Republican. And that’s certainly been true historically if you look at the final election results”
There are 126,061 registered voters in Licking County, according to the Licking County Board of Elections website. While a vast majority of them – 87,748 – are not registered with a party, 27,077 are registered Republicans, 11,073 are registered Democrats, and 163 are registered Libertarians.
“If everybody showed up to every election like this, this country would function so much better,” Wigginton said. “I would love to see this kind of turnout at every election.”
Bianca Duran writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.