Summit County elections board says steady flow of early voters 'moving pretty well'

The parking lot at the Summit County Board of Election Early Vote Center at 500 Grant St. buzzed with activity at noon Friday. Even so, Kristen Kemp said she only had to wait in line for about 15 minutes to cast her vote.

"It wasn't bad," Kemp said, "and it's a beautiful day, so that helps."

Waiting outside for her husband to finish voting, Kemp, 81, of Akron's Merriman Valley, said the elections board "does a great job" organizing the county's early voting process.

William Tuttle, 67, of Fairlawn, said that, compared to four years ago, his experience Friday was much smoother. He, too, said he only waited about 15 minutes before voting.

His only critique was the traffic pattern.

"It was a little challenging with construction and all," Tuttle said, but he was able to find parking directly behind the early vote center.

"Things have still been moving pretty smoothly ," said Lance Reed, director of the Summit County Board of Elections. "Parking lot's been moving pretty well, voters have been getting in and out of the Early Vote Center pretty easily, so that's worked out well."

He said the off-site parking and the shuttles have been reducing the pressure on the parking lot.

"I haven't seen any long lines this week at all," said Reed. "Last week, longest, I heard, I think was Friday, it ended up being about 45 minutes." Reed said he and his fellow personnel hadn't seen anyone giving up and leaving the line before getting to vote.

He said he thinks it's helping that there are signs in the queue system estimating how long voters will have to wait from their spot in line.

Reed previously estimated that if the queue system were full, the wait time would be two to two-and-a-half hours.

How many people have voted early in Summit County so far?

According to an internally generated public report provided to the Beacon Journal, to-date 14,819 people already had voted in-office as of early Friday afternoon since early voting began Oct. 8; 511 voted curbside and 19 picked up ballots to take with them — known as a "hand carry," Reed said.

To-date, the board has received 13,291 mail-in ballots. However, 196 of those have gone uncounted, a number Reed said needs to "be taken with a little bit of a grain of salt."

He explained that if someone monitoring the new equipment the board uses to process mail-in ballots flags an issue — a mismatched signature, for example — it gets kicked up to a supervisor who reviews the ballot. The supervisor then determines the ballot's eligibility.

"What we've actually been seeing, like the first day, I think we had maybe 202 that were bad, but after the supervisors got a chance to look at it, I think it knocked it down to like 150," said Reed.

How many early voting days are left?

While the center is always busy during early voting hours, Reed said that that aside from the first day, the weekends are high-volume early voting days. The center, however, does not open for Saturday and Sunday voting until Oct. 26 — providing just two weekends for early voting before Election Day.

The Early Vote Center is open on the following dates and times:

Contact reporter Derek Kreider at DKreider@Gannett.com or 330-541-9413

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Summit County elections board says steady flow of early voters 'moving pretty well'