NORWOOD, Ohio — In 2020, Ohio saw record early voting and near-record voting numbers once Election Day came and went, and those trends mirrored much of what the state saw in its urban counties.
Hamilton County's turnout was slightly higher than what the county saw in 2016 and on the whole, voters skewed blue. It wasn't enough to change the congressional picture, or impact the electoral college vote, but it did bring a few new faces to local government.
Republicans Steve Chabot and Brad Wenstrup held onto their congressional seats in districts 1 and 2, despite losing the vote in Hamilton County. Democrat Kate Schroeder ended the night up six points in Hamilton County and Jaime Castle was up about nine points, though Republicans won big in other parts of their district.
Democrats edged out wins in most of the countywide races, with both county commissioner seats going to Democrats Alicia Reece and Denise Driehaus.
Democrat Charmaine McGuffey won the sheriff's race over Republican challenger Bruce Hoffbauer by five points. She will become the first openly lesbian sheriff in Ohio.
Republicans were able to hold onto the prosecutor's seat. Incumbent Joseph Deters beat out Democrat Fanon Rucker by fewer than 20,000 votes.
After polls closed, the Hamilton County Board of Elections sorted through a record-breaking 169,000 mail-in ballots on top of the 170,000 Election Day votes and 80,000 early votes.
Sally Krisel, deputy director of the Hamilton County Board of Elections, said the process started as soon as those mail-in ballots came in. She said more than 90 percent were returned before Election Day.
For those that came in before Election Night, they were able to verify that the ballots were filled out properly and sent through the scanner throughout the past few weeks, but they couldn't start counting until 7:30 Tuesday night.
Krisel said most of the precincts and mail-in ballots were counted by 1:00 a.m. Wednesday.
“I think we were totally finished by, actually earlier than we reported, because we also had absentee ballots that we needed to get in in that last push," she said. "So, I think we had everything in by midnight, but we were still sorting out and verifying all the absentee ballots.”
Krisel said there are still a few thousand provisional ballots and absentee ballots sent in on Election Day that her staff needs to verify and count.
As of Wednesday, the reported turnout in Hamilton County is just above 70 percent. Krisel expects that number to rise as those final ballots are counted.