With less than two weeks away from Election Day, early voting is picking up throughout the state despite predictions the numbers won’t match those from two years ago.

As of Tuesday, Cuyahoga County voters turned in 75,801 absentee ballots, amounting to roughly 36 percent of the total mail ballots requested. In Franklin County, more than 80,000 ballots have been returned. The Summit County Board of Elections reports 11,645 people have already voted absentee, and in Portage County, nearly 800 people headed to the polls since early voting began Sept. 28.

According to a report released Oct. 14 by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s office, more than 600,000 ballots were either cast in person or mailed out to Ohioans in the first week of early voting. Franklin and Cuyahoga counties account for more than half that number.

Ben Piscitelli, public information officer for the Franklin County Board of Elections, said the reason is because local election officials sent absentee ballots with pre-paid postage to all registered voters in both counties this year. He said so far the response has been strong.

While Piscitelli said he doesn’t expect as many early voters as 2008, ballots have slowly and steadily trickled in.

“We’re going to surpass, at this point, the level of demand we saw in the last gubernatorial election (in 2006),” he said.

To compare, Ohio absentee ballots in 2008 totaled about 1.4 million and comprised 25.2 percent of all ballots cast in the state, according to The United States Election Project. In 2006, early voters made up 15.4 percent of the overall turnout.

For this midterm election, more Democrats in Cuyahoga County requested absentee ballots than Republicans at 56 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Piscitelli said requested ballots between the two major political parties in Franklin County are fairly even.

Catherine Dieterly, library science graduate student, said she hasn’t voted yet and doesn’t plan to.

“I have exams that day, and I can’t really go back home to vote,” she said. “I guess I could do an absentee ballot, but I don’t know how to do that.”

Although Dieterly said she didn’t vote in 2008 because she didn’t care about the candidates or issues, she admitted apathy is a problem, especially among young voters.

Brett Fodor, junior philosophy major, gave a similar reason why students may forgo the polls this time around but said he will “definitely” vote Nov. 2.

“I think young people get kind of lazy sometimes, especially college students,” he said. “They have a lot of other priorities going on, and sometimes voting takes a back seat.”

Fodor, who is also director of academic affairs for the Undergraduate Student Senate, said he enjoys the voting experience on Election Day but said the appeal of an absentee ballot is evident.

“If I wasn’t planning on voting and I got an absentee ballot in the mail, I’d probably do it. It’s right there in front of you, so there’s no reason to blow it off,” he said. “It doesn’t take very long. If it were right in front of me, I’d probably do it, even if I wasn’t interested in the election.”

I’D BE HAPPY IF ANY OF THESE FOLKS VOTED. PERIOD. THE NUMBERS EASILY COULD HAVE BEEN SHIFTED TO A GRAF TO MAKE IT MORE UNDERSTANDABLE.

LOST ME A LITTLE IN THE NUMBERS.