Voter turnout steady on Election Day
Voter turnout in Butler County was steady on Election Day, but less busy than the last time the governor’s seat was on the ballot.
As of 8 p.m., when the polls closed Tuesday, 59.42% of the county’s 144,512 registered voters had cast their ballots. However, that percentage is less than the slightly more than 70% who voted in the 2022 gubernatorial election, Chantell McCurdy, director of the county election bureau, said.
“We were fairly busy across our precincts. We were steady, but given how steady we were, I expected a higher turnout,” McCurdy said.
She said 85,887 votes were cast of 8 p.m. Tuesday. She noted there are more registered voters now than there were in 2022. According to 2022 archived election results, 93,949 ballots were cast out of just 137,344 registered voters.
McCurdy said the number of voters from individual political parties who voted Tuesday won’t be known until next week.
Most — but not all — of the votes from Tuesday’s election have been counted, she said.
The 475 provisional ballots cast at the polls will be researched by the bureau. The information will be presented to the computation board Friday. The board will decide if those votes will be counted on a case-by-case basis, McCurdy said.
Military ballots that were received by Tuesday have been counted. However, some are outstanding. The federal deadline to submit those ballots is next Tuesday, Nov. 10. Those ballots will be counted if they come in, she said.
Write-in votes that require a review will be evaluated by the computation board Friday, McCurdy said.
Butler County Republican Committee Chairperson Stacey Palmer said Wednesday morning she hadn’t looked at voter turnout numbers yet. She said she will review the numbers and obtain the party turnout numbers when they become available.
“I need to look at where the Republican turnout was compared with the Democratic turnout,” Palmer said. “We’ll look at the numbers over next several weeks to see how we can motivate Republicans to turn out.”
She said recent national voter history indicates that Republican candidates fair better when voter turnout is high.
Butler County Democratic Committee Chairman Donald J. Vigliotti could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
