COLUMBUS — Just 15 days ahead of the 2016 Presidential General Election, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted today announced that as of Friday, October 21, an estimated 1,424,916 absentee ballots had been requested statewide. This includes 21,310 requests from military and overseas voters. Voting for military and overseas personnel began on September 24 and all absentee voting began on October 12, the day after the close of registration.

2016 Presidential Election by-the-numbers:

• 7,784,128 Ohioans are registered to vote.
• 1,259,401 voters have requested an absentee ballot by mail as of Friday.
• Of those, 344,314 have been cast.
• 165,515 voters have requested and cast an absentee ballot in-person as of Friday.
• 21,310 military & overseas voters have requested an absentee ballot as of Friday.
• Of those, 6,065 have been cast.

Absentee ballot applications must be received by boards of elections by noon on Saturday, Nov. 5 but voters are encouraged to submit their request as soon as possible to ensure sufficient time to complete and return their ballot to the board of elections.

If being returned by-mail, completed absentee ballots must be postmarked by the day before the election and arrive at the board of elections within 10 days of Election Day in order to be counted. Ohio is only one of 12 states to allow late-arriving ballots to be counted.

If you have not mailed your ballot prior to election week, the Secretary of State’s Office recommends voters take their completed ballot to the post office and request it receive a postage cancellation marking, or return it personally to their county board of elections prior to the close of the polls at 7:30 p.m. on Election Day.

At this same point in time ahead of the start of absentee voting in 2012, over 1.6 million absentee ballots had been requested with more than 800,000 ballots having been already cast. That year marked the first-ever statewide mailing of absentee ballot applications and voters who took advantage of this option represented a third of all ballots cast in that election — a record 1.87 million absentee ballots were cast by mail and in person.