Thousands not willing to wait for Election Day

With just two weeks to go, voting is already in full swing across Ohio.

Two weeks ahead COLUMBUS — of Election Day, voting is in full swing in Ohio, with more than 900,000 people having requested absentee ballots as of last week and more than 34,000 casting early ballots in person.

New vote totals will be released today.

Many of Ohio’s 8 million registered voters love the conve-

nience of voting early, and it’ll get easier when weekend early voting opens at county boards of election beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday.

Ohio has 28 days of absentee voting, nearly 200 hours of in-person early voting and — if you want to wait until Nov. 6 — 13 hours when polls are open on Election Day. Early voting occurs at county boards of election, while Election Day voting is between 6:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. at your local polling place.

Turnout in midterm elections historically has fallen well below that of presidential elections. An analysis from Mike Dawson, who crunches stats for OhioElectionResults.com, shows that voter turnout for midterms in Ohio averages 53.4 percent compared with 71 percent for presidential elections over the past 40 years.

Voters in midterms tend to be older — an average of 56.5 in 2014 — compared with the average voter age of 51 in the 2016 presidential election, Dawson’s analysis shows.

Polls and political analysts show the Ohio governor’s race is a toss up between Republican Mike DeWine and Democrat Richard Cordray. The website FiveThirtyEight.com ranks the DeWine-Cordray race as one of the three closest gubernatorial contests this fall.

DeWine has a 56.1 percent chance of winning while Cordray has a 43.9 percent chance, the website says, with the expected margin of victory likely to be one percentage point.

Turnout could make or break contests like the DeWine-Cordray race. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted notes that every vote matters: since 2013, 199 elections in Ohio have been decided by one vote or have been tied.

Voters also will decide State Issue 1, a constitutional amendment that would reclassify low-level felony drug use and drug possession charges as misdemeanors with no jail time for the first two offenses.

Also on the ballot: Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is facing a challenge from U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Wadsworth; two seats on the Ohio Supreme Court are up for grabs; legislative seats in the Ohio House and Senate and U.S. House are in play; and executive offices — attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and treasurer — will be decided.

Campaign finance reports are due Thursday, which will give an indication of who is winning the races for campaign cash.