Absent voters surpass records

Columbiana County had to order more absentee ballots from its printer.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Election boards in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys expect to process considerably more absentee ballots for this presidential election than the last one.
In the 2000 election that pitted Republican George W. Bush against Democrat Al Gore, the five election boards processed about 30,000 absentee ballots.
The projection for next week's election is about 35,000 to 40,000 absentee ballots.
"We're swamped with absentees," said John Payne, director of the Columbiana County Board of Elections. "We had 5,000 copies printed, and we've already used most of them. I had to order another 1,000."
The old record for absentees in Columbiana County was 3,500 in 2000.
Absentee ballots allow residents under certain conditions to vote before the Nov. 2 election. Those conditions are: a person is 62 years of age or older, has a handicap that makes it difficult or impossible to vote at a polling place, or will be out of the county Election Day. The ballots are not opened by the election boards until Election Day.
It's been so busy at the Columbiana elections board that the agency still doesn't have a final number of registered voters in the county. Columbiana and Ohio's other 87 counties were to have a list of registered voters at their offices Oct. 18.
An election employee said the list would be finalized today or Wednesday.
Elsewhere in region
As of Monday, the Mahoning County Board of Elections had received 11,395 absentee ballots, said Director Michael Sciortino. The county had 16,626 requests for absentee ballots so Sciortino expects close to that number. The deadline to submit an absentee ballot is 7:30 p.m. Election Day.
In 2000, Mahoning had 12,319 absentee ballots.
In Trumbull County, election officials are expecting about 10,000 absentee ballots, about what they received in the 2000 presidential election, said Rokey Suleman, its elections board deputy director.
In Pennsylvania, Mercer and Lawrence counties' bureaus of registration and elections are working on final registration numbers. The deadline in Pennsylvania to have those figures was Monday, but the Department of State is flexible with the deadline because of the increased number of voters this year.
As of Monday, there were 76,084 registered voters in Mercer County, up from 73,056 in 2000.
In Lawrence County, the current number is 59,427, up from 55,777 in 2000.
The two counties are also experiencing increases in absentee voters.
In Mercer, 4,200 people requested absentee ballots, and 3,561 were returned as of Monday. In 2000, about 2,400 people voted absentee.
In Lawrence, 2,800 absentee votes were returned as of Monday. In 2000, 1,956 people voted absentee.
skolnick@vindy.com