Monday, April 24, 2006
Absentee ballot requests in the Valley are lower than last year's figures.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Don't worry about having to stand in long lines waiting to vote May 2 in the Mahoning Valley.
Turnout in Trumbull County should be 32 percent to 33 percent, predicts Rokey Suleman, its elections board deputy director. Thomas McCabe, director of the Mahoning County Board of Elections, predicts turnout in his county at 30 percent. Turnout in Columbiana County should be 24 percent to 25 percent, said Lois Gall, its elections board director.
The number of people requesting absentee ballots is much lower than in previous years, even though it's easier to qualify for an absentee ballot than in the past.
The state passed a law that permits those who want to vote absentee to do so without a reason beginning with next week's primary. In previous years, people needed a reason for voting absentee, such as being out of the area on Election Day or an illness that didn't permit them to go to the polls.
Requests by county
About 900 people requested absentee ballots in Trumbull County as of Monday, a very small number, Suleman said.
There were about 860 voters requesting absentee ballots in Columbiana County, about average for a statewide election year, Gall said.
In Mahoning County, 3,800 people requested absentee ballots, and that number probably won't get any higher than 5,000, said Joyce Kale-Pesta, the county's elections board deputy director. About 10,000 people voted absentee in last year's primary, she said.
The deadline to request absentee ballots in Ohio by mail, e-mail or fax is Saturday, Kale-Pesta said. The deadline to vote absentee at county boards of elections is Monday.
Besides a countywide sales tax and the Democratic Youngstown mayoral contest, there wasn't much of note on the 2005 primary ballot in the area, local election board officials say.
In comparison, next week's primary features contested Democratic and Republican races for governor, U.S. senator and attorney general along with two contested Ohio Supreme Court Democratic races, a contested Republican state treasurer's race, and primaries in Mahoning and Trumbull for county commissioner and court of appeals.
In portions of Mahoning County, voters will cast ballots in the 6th Congressional District and the 60th Ohio House races. In Columbiana, there is the 6th District primary and a countywide sales tax on the ballot.
McCabe said the low absentee turnout is a mild surprise because state Sen. Charlie Wilson of St. Clairsville and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are spending tens of thousands of dollars on television commercials urging people to write in Wilson's name in the Democratic primary. But McCabe said he hasn't seen a concerted absentee ballot effort by or for Wilson in Mahoning County.
Also, there's been no "huge push" for people to vote absentee in Mahoning County by supporters of Attorney General Jim Petro or Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the two GOP gubernatorial candidates, McCabe said.
Mahoning County has 174,454 voters registered for next week's primary, and Trumbull has 141,544 registered voters. Columbiana County hasn't finished its count yet, but has about 79,000 registered voters, Gall said.
2002 election
Turnout in 2002, the last statewide primary election, was very light statewide with only 17 percent of registered voters casting ballots.
In Columbiana County, turnout was 24 percent in 2002. In Trumbull and Mahoning, turnout was 30 percent and 31 percent, respectively, four years ago.
The Diebold touch-screen voting machines in Trumbull County and the Election Systems and Software touch-screen voting machines in Mahoning County, which recently had a paper audit trail added to them, are programmed and are being distributed to polling locations.