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Politics Chat: This Year's Election In Ohio Will Be Larger Than The 2008 'Obama Surge'

91.7 WVXU | By Howard Wilkinson
Published October 16, 2020 at 8:00 AM EDT
The line to vote stretched past the Board of Elections building in Norwood, and around two corners, Tuesday morning, Oct. 6, the first day of early voting in Ohio.
Bill Rinehart
/
WVXU
The line to vote stretched past the Board of Elections building in Norwood, and around two corners, Tuesday morning, Oct. 6, the first day of early voting in Ohio.

This presidential election in Ohio is clearly going to shatter all previous records for turnout. By the time the polling places open on Nov. 3, over half of Ohio voters will have already cast early ballots, either by absentee ballot or in person at county boards of elections.

About 193,000 Ohioans went to their county boards last week to cast a ballot. That's three times as many as four years ago at the same point. And the boards of elections received nearly 2.5 million requests for absentee ballots - more than twice as many as had been requested at the same point in 2016.

WXVU Senior Political Analyst Howard Wilkinson spoke with WVXU's Jay Hanselman about how the state and county election officials are dealing with the massive number of votes cast so far and expected to be cast by Election Day.

Copyright 2021 91.7 WVXU. To see more, visit 91.7 WVXU.

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Howard Wilkinson
Howard Wilkinson joined the WVXU News Team after 30 years of covering local and state politics for The Cincinnati Enquirer. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Wilkinson has covered every Ohio governor’s race since 1974 as well as 12 presidential nominating conventions. His streak continued by covering both the 2012 Republican and Democratic conventions for 91.7 WVXU. Along with politics, Wilkinson also covered the 2001 Cincinnati race riots; the Lucasville Prison riot in 1993; the Air Canada plane crash at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 1983; and the 1997 Ohio River flooding. The Cincinnati Reds are his passion. "I've been listening to WVXU and public radio for many years, and I couldn't be more pleased at the opportunity to be part of it,” he says.
See stories by Howard Wilkinson