Early voting has not led to more voting in Ohio, at least not in terms of total votes cast. A Dispatch analysis of the vote totals from the past three presidential elections in the state shows that overall turnout in the 2012 race, when Ohioans arguably had the most opportunities in state history to vote early, was lower than in the 2004 election, when there was virtually no early voting in Ohio.

Early voting has not led to more voting in Ohio, at least not in terms of total votes cast.

A Dispatch analysis of the vote totals from the past three presidential elections in the state shows that overall turnout in the 2012 race, when Ohioans arguably had the most opportunities in state history to vote early, was lower than in the 2004 election, when there was virtually no early voting in Ohio.

Turnout in 2008, the first presidential race in which Ohioans had no-fault absentee voting and also the first time an African-American was on the ballot, was about 1 percent higher than in 2004.

�People who vote early are people who are typically going to vote anyway,� said Paul Beck, a political science professor at Ohio State University. �So, early voting hasn�t really succeeded in turning out more people to vote. We�ve made it a lot easier to vote, but on the other hand, some people are very discouraged about politics and might not care how easy it is to vote.�

Being able to cast a vote before Election Day has been a big issue in Ohio since that 2004 race, when the whole world waited for returns in Ohio to see who would win the White House, but those returns were delayed by logjams at the polls.

It�s remained a hot topic during the past three years because of fights at the Statehouse and in federal court over GOP laws aimed at reducing the early voting days Ohioans gained since 2004. It was front and center last week when a federal judge granted a permanent injunction preventing Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted from restricting or eliminating voting on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday before all future elections.

Democrats inside and outside the state hailed the ruling by U.S. District Judge Peter C. Economus as �a win for all Ohioans� and a victory for greater ballot access.

Husted, who previously set hours for the 2014 governor�s election that prohibited in-person voting on Sunday and Monday before the Nov. 4 election, said the decision was a sign the judge agreed with him that all Ohioans should have the same chance to vote.

But experts view Economus� ruling as more of a �symbolic� win for voting-rights activists and a tactical advantage for some campaigns than an open door to more people participating in democracy.

�If all things are equal, early voting would increase voter turnout, but all things aren�t equal,� said John Green, a political science professor at the University of Akron. �But there are many factors in each election: the closeness of the race, the excitement to vote for a candidate or the degree of anger in the electorate.�

In 2004, Ohioans could either vote on Election Day or cast an absentee ballot if they would be outside the county on Election Day, were sick or had some other specific reason for not being able to get to their polling location. More than 5.7 million people voted that year, handing President George W. Bush another four years. But in 2005, with Husted as Ohio House speaker, legislators of both parties agreed to a law change instituting no-fault absentee voting.

In 2008, the first presidential race under the new rules, counties set their own in-person early-voting hours, with voting allowed weeks before the election, and some counties mailed absentee ballot applications. With now-President Barack Obama on the ballot, a record 5.8 million Ohioans voted, 1.7 million of them early.

Two years ago, absentee applications were mailed to all registered Ohio voters. Husted also set uniform early-voting hours for all counties but prohibited weekend voting, which meant more early voting for many Republican-leaning rural counties, but fewer hours in some of the larger, Democratic-leaning counties.

Legislation was also on the books prohibiting in-person early voting on the final three days before the election, but a lawsuit filed by Obama and Ohio Democrats ultimately got those days restored. As a result, some counties had in-person early voting on those three days for the first time.

There were nearly 1.9 million votes cast early in 2012 � a record � out of about 5.6 million total votes, which was lower than in 2004 and 2008.

Much attention has been paid over the past few years to the effects of early voting for minorities � mostly African-American, Democratic-leaning voters who advocates say are more inclined to vote early and in person. Statistics offer conflicting evidence of the impact voting-rule changes had on black voters between 2008 and 2012.

Three thousand more Ohioans voted on the final three days before Election Day in 2012 than they did in 2008 � when black congregations drove voters to the polls on those days and Obama was on the ballot. Exit polls after the 2012 election showed black voters accounting for 15 percent of Ohio�s electorate, up from 11 percent in 2008, but a review of precinct-by-precinct data showed Obama got fewer votes two years ago than he did in 2008 in some of the most predominately black precincts in the state, including in Columbus and Cleveland.

�The reason we had less voters in 2012 was because we had less hours to vote,� said state Rep. Kathleen Clyde, D-Kent, a Husted critic. �And (Husted) has done everything he could to cut those hours and to limit them. I wish (Husted) was concerned that turnout was down under his watch. I would be.�

Husted, who says he has both fulfilled his duty to enforce laws passed by the legislature and, when it was up to him, to create uniform voting rules for everyone, said perhaps �turnout was down in 2012 because Democrats spent so much time scaring people over how tough they said it was to vote, instead of telling them the truth about how easy it actually is.�

Husted said that even with a GOP-backed legislative change this year that eliminated �Golden Week� and shrank Ohio�s early-voting period from 35 to 28 days, the state still had more early voting opportunities than most others.

jvardon@dispatch.com

@joevardon