Cuyahoga County Board of Elections prepares for a busy Tuesday

CLEVELAND - If 2008 is any indication, Tuesday will be a very busy day at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and at boards across the state.

Couple Tuesday’s deadline to register to vote along with the one-day expansion of hours from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and you’ll have not only those looking to register showing up, but those looking to vote early who can’t make it to the board before the normal 5 p.m. deadline on weekdays.

It was that combination that led to 787 people showing up to register and vote at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on that last day in 2008. Also on that day 2,482 people voted in-person early.

That’s close to 600 more than the number of people who voted early last Tuesday, on the first day of in-person voting.

Though we’re only one week into early voting numbers, votes are down because of the reduced hours set by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted in an effort to have uniform hours among the 88 Boards of Elections.

The flip side is the number of people requesting absentee ballots be mailed to them is up. At this stage four years ago, the board had received just under 190,000 requests for ballots where as of Sunday the BOE had received 209,000 or 22.7 percent of the vote.

36.3 percent of registered Republicans in Cuyahoga County have requested an early ballot while 32.3 percent of Democrats have done the same. The county’s largest voting bloc, non-partisan’s still lag behind at 11.6 percent.