In-person, early voting numbers down from 2008 in Cuyahoga County

CLEVELAND - The door has officially shut on early voting in Ohio, while we won’t know the results of those early ballots until shortly after the polls close at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday night, we can look at the numbers to see who voted and who hasn’t.

First off, fewer people voted early in-person in Cuyahoga County this year compared to four years ago, off about 9,000 votes or 16.6 percent.

While much has been made about the reduced hours and lost weekend voting this year, the numbers remained on a pace ahead of 2008 heading into the final week, but trailed off dramatically over the last seven days.

Weather no doubt a factor with the remnants of Superstorm Sandy drenching northeast Ohio daily much of the last week. That being said, the final weekend of early voting in Cleveland saw around 800 fewer voters when compared to the final weekend in 2008.

In the end, 45,337 people voted early this year, including 2,826 people on Monday. That’s compared to 54,340 in 2008.

Combined with those voting by mail, there are roughly 250,000 votes in-house, ready to be tallied at the Cuyahoga County BOE when the polls close at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

While Democrats state the poll numbers show the early vote benefits them, it’s interesting to note as a percentage, the early vote reflects an uptick for Republicans compared to their early voting numbers in 2008.

As of the day before Election Day, Democratic early votes already in are at 89 percent of their ’08 number while Republicans are at 138 percent of their ’08 early vote total.

So how much of the vote is actually in and how many people will head to the polls? Well, if you were to compare the current Cuyahoga County totals to the actual voter turnout in 2008, Democrats have 37.6 percent of their final vote in ’08, Republicans are at 59.6 percent of theirs and non-partisans are at 26 percent of their vote.