Election 2020: More than 20% of Montgomery County voters have cast their ballots

Montgomery County Board of Elections Director Jan Kelly believes her office is on track to surpass the number of early votes cast in 2016.

“It’s been busy,” she said. “(Monday), it was raining and we thought we’d have a few people. We had 2,426 people casting their votes.”

During the 2016 general election, 90,598 absentee ballots were issued and 34,425 people voted early in the board of elections office. More than 120,000 Montgomery County voters have requested absentee ballots and the board of elections has mailed more than 100,000 of those.

Kelly asked voters to not request an absentee ballot and then vote in-person because it creates extra work for election officials and sometimes confusion. Voters who requested an absentee ballot and show up on Election Day to vote will have to cast a provisional ballot. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose recommends Ohio voters submit requests for an absentee ballot no later than Oct. 27.

Poll Workers

Meanwhile, Kelly said, Montgomery County has plenty of poll workers. Ohio’s Poll Worker Tracker, a website launched by the Ohio Secretary of State’s office for this election, indicates Montgomery County still needs more than 100 Republican poll workers to meet the minimum needed threshold. However, Kelly said that data is not accurate, and the county has enough trained poll workers and a deluge of volunteers that the board of elections is still working to get back to.

The poll worker tracker also indicates Greene County needs 30 Democratic and about 70 Republican poll workers to meet the minimum threshold. But Greene County Board of Elections Director Llyn McCoy says the county has enough signed up. McCoy explained that the minimum number of poll workers needed as reported on the state website would require four workers per precinct. However, Greene County has a number of polling locations with multiple precincts, including a location at the fair grounds with about 10 precincts, so they don’t require four workers per precinct.

“Really and truly we have enough poll workers,” she said.

The Greene County Board of Elections has 60 people signed up for training this week which don’t show in their records yet, McCoy said.

Area counties caught up with mailing ballots

Montgomery County is not effected, but a Cleveland vendor that delayed mailing ballots to 16 Ohio counties, including Butler and Miami, is caught up. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose made the announcement in a video update posted to Facebook Monday night.

LaRose also said that nine of the 16 counties that contracted with Midwest Direct, including Butler and Miami counties, have decided to break with the vendor and begin processing ballots in-house. Butler and Miami counties election officials said Tuesday they are managing ballot requests well since splitting with Midwest Direct last week.