SIDNEY – Shelby County had the 16th highest voter turnout among Ohio’s 88 counties in the 2020 general election with 77.5% of registered voters in the county casting ballots.
Ohio counties with the highest voter turnout voted Republican and tended to be wealthy or growing suburban areas or farming communities, according to data from Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose that was analyzed by David Knox and Doug Oplinger of Your Voice Ohio.
Putnam County had the highest voter turnout in the state at 84.1% followed by Delaware (83.8%), Geauga (83.3%), Medina (82%) and Warren (81.9%) counties.
Also among the counties with the highest turnout were some of Shelby County’s neighboring counties, including Mercer (81.3%), Auglaize (79.8%), Darke (78.9%) and Miami (77.3%).
Shelby County’s turnout was higher than the state average of 74%.
Ohio’s lowest voter turnout was in Lawrence County with 64.5% of registered voters casting ballots. Athens (67%), Lucas (67.5%), Pike (69.2%) and Marion (69.9%) also were among the counties with the lowest turnout.
According to Knox and Oplinger, Ohio counties with the lowest voter turnout tended to be in major urban and poor rural counties.
More than half of Shelby County’s 35 precincts had at least 80% of registered voters cast ballots in the 2020 general election including Loramie West (89.9%), Cynthian West (88.7%), Dinsmore (88.7%), Fort Loramie Village (88.2%), Jackson (87.3%), Salem West (87%), Franklin (86.8%), Van Buren South (86.8%), Green (86.1%), Cynthian East (85.9%), McLean (84.7%), Orange (82.6%), Botkins Village (82.4%), Turtle Creek (81.8%), Loramie East (81.4%), Sidney 4-D (81.3%), Sidney 1-C (81.2%) and Salem East (80.5%).
Shelby County’s lowest voter turnout was from Sidney 4-A (52.1%), Sidney 3-A (54.3%), Sidney 2-A (55.6%), Sidney 1-A (64.1%) and Sidney 3-B (65.9%).
As a whole, Ohio voter turnout was up in 2020 compared to 2016 when 71.3% of registered voters cast ballots and 2012 when 70.5% of registered voters cast ballots.
With 77.5% of registered voters casting ballots, Shelby County voter turnout was up in 2020 compared to 2016 when 71% of registered voters cast ballots and up from 2012 when 77% of registered voters cast ballots.
Donald Trump received 80.9% of Shelby County votes for the presidency in 2020, which was better than he performed in 2016 when he received 78.3% of the votes.
Joe Biden received 17.7% of Shelby County votes for the presidency, down slightly from Hillary Clinton’s 17.9% in 2016.
Most of Trump’s gains came from a drop in third-party voters. In 2020 third-party candidates received 1.5% of the vote in Shelby County, which was down from 3.8% in 2016.
Across Ohio, Trump increased his vote share from 51.7% in 2016 to 53.3% in 2020.
Biden received 45.2% of Ohio’s vote in 2020, which was up from the 43.6% Clinton received in 2016.
While the Democrats and Republicans gained a larger share of Ohio’s votes in 2020 than in 2016, third-party candidates saw their percentage drop from 4.8% in 2016 to 1.5% in 2020.
In Shelby County, 57.8% of votes in the 2020 general election were cast as absentee ballots. That’s slightly below the statewide average with 58.6% of Ohio voters casting absentee ballots during the 2020 general election.
