DARKE COUNTY — Early votes and absentee ballots turned in to the Darke County Board of Elections have exceeded totals from the previous presidential election year.

Elections Administrator Luke Burton says the board, as of Monday, had received a total of 3,376 absentee ballots of 3,671 mailed out. Further, the board saw 4,349 voters come to the board of elections headquarters to cast early ballots.

In all, 7,725 votes had already been cast in the county on the eve of the election.

“We blew 2012 out of the water,” Burton said.

During the 2012 election, the board received a total of 6,595 absentee ballots, of which 3,328 were early in-office voters.

It’s likely Darke County voters, nestled within the heavily Republican-leaning 8th Congressional District, will give a large percentage of their votes to Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump in his race against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney gathered 18,108 votes to incumbent President Barack Obama’s 6,826.

While some states have reported results from early voting, the same won’t be said of those votes cast in Darke County.

“We won’t begin to tabulate those until the polls close at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday night,” Burton said.

Burton said that of the 300-odd absentee ballots not yet turned in, those votes will still count as long as they are postmarked by the day before election day (November 7) or turned into the board of elections by hand on Tuesday.

Burton also said the board’s website will post updates on the vote, with the first major returns likely to hit the web at approximately 8:30 p.m., an hour after polls close.

For further information, visit the Darke County Board of Elections website at electionsonthe.net/oh/darke/index.html, email [email protected], or call 937-548-1835.