Early voting in Licking County is running at about twice the volume of four years ago, elections board members were told this week.
“We expect about 20,000 early voters this year compared to 10,000 four years ago,” said Brian Mead, deputy director of the Licking County Board of Elections, attributing that in part to strong interest in the races for Ohio governor and U.S. Senator.
Mead said during the Monday, Oct. 12 elections board meeting that 2,732 people had voted in the first week of early voting, with 745 people voting on Oct. 6, the first day of early voting, and 757 on Friday.
The board has seen an uptick in requests for mail-in absentee ballots – 10,685 so far, he said. The board has repeatedly reminded voters that absentee ballots are due back to the elections board office at 20 S. 2nd Street in Newark by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, and any that arrive after that deadline will not be counted.
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The strong interest in voting early has resulted in a line forming in the hallway outside the elections board office, where it has about a dozen voting machines.
Tess Wigginton, elections board director, said the early turnout was higher than expected and closer on some days to what the office sees during presidential elections, when the board sets up voting machines in a large meeting room in the county administration building to handle increased numbers of voters.
Wigginton also told the board about communications from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office discussing any potential attempts by anyone to interfere with voting now or on Election Day.
A memo from Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose stated that “there is no factual basis for Ohio election officials to tell voters, poll workers or the public that ICE is being deployed to our polling places,” referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. “Federal officials responsible for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have repeatedly said otherwise.”
At LaRose’s suggestion in another memo, Wigginton said she would touch base with Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp to remind him of the statutory responsibilities of Ohio sheriffs offices and police departments to respond if anyone attempts to interfere with voting.
She said the Democratic and Republican parties both have submitted placeholder requests to have observers in Licking County polling places, and observers are not allowed to interfere with anyone attempting to vote.
Wigginton said that if an observer or anyone else – including ICE officers – attempted to interfere with voting, she would not hesitate to call the sheriff or local police.
Alan Miller 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.