Record local voter turnout reported

By WILLIAM KINCAID and SYDNEY ALBERT
newsroom@dailystandard.com

Local voters came out in droves this election cycle.

Mercer County likely saw a record-breaking turnout of 80.08%. The county's previous highest voter turnout for a presidential election since 1996 was the 2008 contest that pitted Barack Obama against John McCain. The turnout that election was 78.83%, per statistics provided by board of elections chairwoman Toni Slusser.

The second-highest turnout was recorded in 2016 when Donald Trump faced off against Hillary Clinton. The rate was 76.6%. The lowest turnout of 68.14% came in the 2004 election between George W. Bush and John Kerry.

Heading into Election Day, 15,544 ballots had already been cast - 53% of the county's 29,409 registered voters.

"I think we ended up about where we thought we would," Mercer County Board of Elections Director Deb Sneddon said of the county's 80.08% turnout rate. "I knew it would be a little bit higher than 2016."

In the end, 23,547 ballots were cast in Mercer County this presidential election - 15,544 absentee ballots and 8,003 at the polls on Election Day. Also, as of the end of Tuesday night, 543 absentee ballots issued by the board had not been returned. Absentee ballots returned by U.S. Mail must be postmarked no later than Nov. 2 and received by boards of elections by Nov. 13 to be counted.

Elections officials issued 397 provisional ballots.

As for the presidential race, Mercer County overwhelmingly came out for President Donald Trump, handing him 79.67% of the total vote. According to the board of elections unofficial results, Trump took 15,934 votes to Joe Biden's 3,801.

Overall, Election Day went off without much of a hitch, officials said.

"I think today went incredibly smooth. This was a presidential election, 2020, the biggest of all of our lifetimes," Sneddon said.

Michelle Wilcox, director of the Auglaize Board of Elections, also said election night went "very smooth." Voter turnout was not quite as high as she had predicted - she had expected about 85% voter turnout, but when unofficial results had been released Tuesday, turnout was only about 78.52%. Still, that percentage was great, Wilcox continued.

Interestingly, the county saw more early absentee voters than in-person voters on Election Day. Of the total 25,511 votes processed by Tuesday night, 14,139 people had utilized early absentee voting options while only 11,372 opted to vote on Election Day.

President Donald Trump captured 20,451 votes, or 80.53% of ballots processed Tuesday night, while Democratic candidate Joe Biden received 4,583, or 18.05%. Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgenson received 250 votes, 0.98%, and Howie Hawkins received 64, 0.25%.

Though unofficial results have been released, the work for election officials in Auglaize County is not over yet. The board of elections will start uploading e-pollbook information and going through provisional ballots today. Wilcox did not know exactly how many provisional ballots officials would need to process, but said the county had "quite a few."

Officials will also continue to count mail-in ballots that arrive post-Election Day. Such ballots have 10 days to arrive as long as they were postmarked by Nov. 2.