As of Oct. 15, 2026, Ohio’s early in-person voting in the opening week of this November’s midterm was running well ahead of the equivalent point in 2022, according to Ohio Secretary of State figures reported by the Ohio Capital Journal. The state recorded 194,841 in-person ballots in the first week, compared with 50,368 after a week in 2022.
Counties collectively had tallied roughly one-third of their entire 2022 early in-person vote. Cuyahoga, Lucas, Lorain and Summit counties—covering Cleveland, Toledo, and Akron—had each exceeded 40% of their 2022 early-vote totals, while Franklin County, the 2022 leader, was slightly below the statewide pace.
Absentee requests, meanwhile, stood at 631,079, a decline of nearly 250,000 from the 871,041 requested in 2022. Seniors accounted for more than half of ballots cast through Monday. Democrats had returned about 94,000 ballots, unaffiliated voters slightly more than 67,000, and Republicans nearly 64,000. Taken together, overall early voting was still behind the 2022 cycle, the Journal reported.
University of Akron political scientist David Cohen tied the mail-ballot drop in part to President Donald Trump’s claims over about 20 months that mail voting is not secure. Cohen also pointed to a Trump effort to use the U.S. Postal Service to impose restrictions, which a lower court blocked and the Supreme Court declined to revive, and to state lawmakers’ elimination of the grace period for late-arriving absentee ballots. He said distrust of mail voting spans party lines and that the early numbers could warn Republicans.
League of Women Voters of Ohio Executive Director Jen Miller said absentee voting is secure and accessible, adding that bipartisan teams check voter identity and that ballots are kept in rooms requiring keys from both parties. The Ohio Capital Journal also noted Trump has asserted without evidence that elections cannot be honest with mail voting.