The chairs of Ohio’s two major political parties are carefully watching the numbers of people who are casting early ballots in person and by mail.
Democratic Party chair David Pepper says more people likely to vote Democratic have been voting in person or returning their absentee ballots, and he expects the first of two weekends of early in-person voting coming up to be good.
“It seems like it’s pretty steady from ‘12, and ‘12 was a winning year for us. So if we simply repeat ’12, we feel good about it,” Pepper said.
Republican Party chair Matt Borges says Republicans won Election Dday in 2012, and he thinks an additional group of GOP voters are turning out now.
“We’re seeing more turnout among our lower-propensity voters in the early voting period than the Democrats are,” Borges said.
Borges and Pepper agree that absentee ballots are down because of the elimination of Golden Week, when voters could register and cast ballots at the same time.
