More Akron residents voting early than in last two elections for mayor and City Council

Even with hundreds of ballots still expected to arrive by mail, more early votes have already been cast this year than in either of the last two municipal primary elections for mayor and council in Akron.

Voter engagement in this typically lower turnout election is especially up in neighborhoods with competitive council ward races. Across Akron, there's heightened interest with more Democrats running for mayor than the city has seen in generations, as well as a crowded field of nine Democrats vying for three citywide seats on council.

The early turnout is particularly impressive considering that absentee balloting was down last year and is down by nearly 50% in some wards where there's no competition.

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The bulk of the early voting is concentrated in western Akron; 63% of all early ballots can be traced to just four of Akron’s 10 wards — 1, 3, 4 and 8. Compared to 2015, preliminary early voting counts are already up 91% in Ward 1, 65% in Ward 8, 44% in Ward 4 and 16% in Ward 3.

What impact the increased activity, especially in key city wards, will have on the citywide mayoral election won’t be fully understood until shortly after the polls close at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. That's when the Summit County Board of Elections will post initial results that include thousands of early ballots, which could represent a quarter or more of the total vote.

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Neighborhoods with increased early voting also have some connection to the leading candidates for mayor.

Marco Sommerville served 25 years as the council representative for Ward 3, where his daughter now serves. Councilman Shammas Malik represents Ward 8 and his campaign signs cover nearby Ward 1, which includes Highland Square. Councilwoman Tara Mosley, who represents Ward 5, could capitalize on stronger-than-usual turnout in Ward 4, which is always one of the highest turnout wards in Akron. This central slice of West Akron includes many of the city's most reliable Black voters who, according to recent polling, are more likely to support Mosley or Sommerville than they are Malik.

The Akron Decides Poll released last month found that 73% of registered, likely voters in Akron won’t be doing so early. They’re waiting to cast their ballots at their polling places on election day.

While the early voting totals could give an early indication of who’s in the lead, it will be the vote counts rolling in well after the polls close at Akron’s 120 precincts that ultimately determine the outcome of the mayor and council races.

Early voting in Akron, on the whole so far, is up about 8% or 9% compared to 2015 or 2019, according to a Beacon Journal analysis of Summit County Board of Elections absentee ballot reporting. The 4,313 absentee ballots cast in Akron through the last day of in-person early voting on Sunday have already exceeded the total 3,977 cast in 2015 and 3,944 cast in 2019.

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The Beacon Journal estimates that total early votes in Akron could reach 5,000 when all is said and done — about 20% to 25% higher than either of the last two municipal primaries.

Early voting is different this year, which makes any calculation difficult. In-person balloting used to be allowed on the day before the election, and late-arriving ballots, if postmarked by the day before the election, could count if they arrived by mail 10 days after the election instead of the new cutoff after four days.

While there are more Democrats to choose from on their party's ballot, there’s virtually the same draw for Republicans, who don't have a candidate on the ballot this year. The lone Republican nominee in the last two primary elections ran unopposed, offering no incentive in those races, as well, for conservatives to vote.

And, even though the state and national trends indicate that more people are voting early and by mail, new voting behaviors during the pandemic can’t explain the current uptick in early voting in Akron, where absentee balloting actually fell last year. During the 2022 midterms, 20,115 early ballots were cast in Akron compared to 20,338 in the 2018 midterms.)

Reach reporter Doug Livingston at dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.co or 330-996-3792.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: What early voting in Akron says about the mayor and council races