LISBON — The Columbiana County Board of Elections certified the official results of the May 5 primary Tuesday, noting the trend of people voting in office rather than mailing in absentee ballots is continuing.

While the overwhelming majority of voters continues coming out on Election Day, in this case 10,963 voters, there were only 661 absentee ballots mailed in that counted while there were 1,405 ballots cast in the board office for early voting.

“More and more voters are going away from the postal service,” Board of Elections Director Kim Fusco said.

For this election, absentee ballots had to be received in the office by 7:30 p.m. Election Day. If they arrived in the mail after Election Day, and were postmarked prior to the election, they did not count this time. In prior years, they did.

There were several that didn’t arrive in time through the mail. Fusco said they’ve received absentee ballots through the mail in prior years that were four to five months late.

None of the outcomes changed with the official count. Fusco said there were no close races at all.

“It was a relatively smooth election,” she said.

The final percentage for the turnout was 20.52%, which is considered low, but Board of Elections Chairman David Johnson said the turnout for partisan voters could be considered high, with 57.7% for Republicans and the Democratic turnout at 136.21%. More voters requested Democratic ballots than the number of registered Democrats, which can happen during a primary since the voter can choose a Republican ballot, a Democratic ballot, Libertarian or issues only.

“I just wish more people would get out to vote,” Fusco said.

The board also authorized the official counts of overlapping districts, which included Carroll County votes for the 79th state representative contest. Both state Rep. Monica Robb Blasdel, a Republican incumbent, and Democrat Bob Guy were unopposed in the primary and will face each other in the fall. Blasdel received 6,702 votes in Columbiana County and 2,250 in Carroll County for a total of 8,952 votes while Guy received 2,890 in Columbiana County and 895 in Carroll County for a total of 3,785 votes.

In other business, the board set the mandatory audit of the primary election results to be held starting at 9 a.m. May 28, with the board meeting at 1:30 p.m. May 29 to certify those audit results. For the audit, the election personnel are required to count 5% of the vote for three select races by hand. The state had already selected the Republican governor’s race and the Democrat Attorney General’s race for the audit.

The board randomly selected the Republican Ohio Supreme Court full term race as the third race to be counted by hand for the audit.

An Ohio Secretary of State staff member present for the meeting explained that the 5% number to be counted must be based on 5% of the ballots cast for the particular race, not from the overall ballots cast. As a result, Fusco, Deputy Director Niki Wilkinson and board members figured out what they needed.

For the Republican governor’s race, 8,843 ballots were cast, with 5% being 442 ballots. For the Democratic attorney general’s race, 3,330 ballots were cast, with 5% being 166 ballots. For the Republican supreme court full term race, 7,981 ballots were cast, with 5% being 399 ballots.

The board then had to randomly select which precincts to count by hand to reach the 5% number necessary.

Using two nine-sided dice, Johnson rolled one die to get the first number and the second to get the second number to chose the precincts. Precincts selected were: 62, which is Unity Township Northwest, with 134 ballots: 42, which is Liverpool Township East, with 231 ballots; and 52, which is St. Clair Township Calcutta, with 348 ballots.

The board of elections personnel will break into teams of two, one Democrat and one Republican, to do each hand count. Then the ballots will be counted by the machine to see if they match up. According to their calculations, there are enough ballots to represent 5% for all three races.