Cincinnati, Ohio | October 21, 2022
Starting the day after voter registration ends, Ohio voters can cast their early in-person ballots at their county board of elections. Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located, has close to 600,000 registered voters. In 2020, at the height of the COVID pandemic, the county’s Board of Elections moved early voting to a cavernous hall that allowed for better social distancing. As of 2022, that space is now the county’s permanent location for early voting. (Gone are the clear acrylic screens that separated voters from election workers when COVID was raging two years before.) Voter check-in stations line the edges of the hall, with dozens of poll workers available to sign in voters. At this first stop, the voter’s ID is scanned and the information is verified in an electronic poll book. Voters then receive a paper ballot, which they mark up at one of the numerous polling booths (standing or seated). Ballot scanners line a back wall and election workers stand by, ready to provide assistance and answer questions. Early voting for the 2022 midterms exceeded that of 2018 in Hamilton County, with voters continuously entering the hall.