NORWOOD, Ohio — With more than 70% of registered voters estimated to have participated in Hamilton County's election this year, election officials processed and counted more ballots than they had in decades.
Hamilton County Board of Elections Deputy Director Sally Krisel called the turnout "really good."
"Presidentials are usually high," Krisel told WCPO.
While Krisel feels confident in the projections made so far in the races across the county, she said her office was still counting approximately 14,000 provisional and mail-in ballots as of Wednesday morning.
"We have about 13,000 provisional ballots that we'll be going through in the next week or so to see how many we can count," she said. "We usually count about 90% of our provisional, and then we'll have some absentee ballots that will be valid that were postmarked Nov. 2. We'll also have civilian and overseas voters' ballots that have 10 days to get to us."
Krisel said elections officers also processed and counted roughly 2,000 ballots placed in dropboxes.
"That's kind of what held us up a little later. We had to get those verified, getting them opened and all that," she said.
Numerous voters who had to submit provisional ballots this year had to do so because their voter registration information was not up to date, Krisel said.
"We have two staff (members) full-time that work with other counties in checking if someone was registered in another Ohio county, so we can make sure they get their registration changed and validated," she said. This is especially common among college students who forgot to request an absentee ballot and went to vote at their local polling location, she said.
Krisel added the so far uncounted ballots aren't likely to swing any of the projections across the county.
Across the state of Ohio, 311,519 ballots remained to be counted as of Wednesday morning, according to Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
