ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Nearly 16,000 people in Belmont County took steps to participate in early voting for today’s general election.

The Belmont County Board of Elections received 15,786 requests total for absentee ballots — whether they were requests for ballots to be mailed, requests for elections workers to visit nursing homes with ballots or people coming to the board office to cast their early votes in person.

Of those, 2,284 represented Democrat voters, 5,482 Republican voters and 8,020 voters with no party affiliation.

Belmont County has 44,627 registered voters — 10,534 Republicans, 3,503 Democrats and 30,590 with no party affiliation.

Deputy Director Kamron Chervenak said requested ballots were mailed out beginning Oct. 8. As of Sunday, 6,981 ballots had been returned to the board office. Chervenak said more were received Monday by mail and via the on-site dropbox.

She also explained that bipartisan teams of elections workers visited nursing homes upon request after early voting started. She said the visits took about a week to complete and noted that the service is “utilized heavily in our county.” Nursing home residents can also vote absentee by mail if they prefer that method.

“Overall, the early voting period in Belmont County went smoothly. Compared to previous years, we saw an increase in the utilization of in person absentee voting,” she said, noting that the elections office saw its highest number ever of early in-person voters this year. “The increase of foot traffic for early voting was nothing that our office wasn’t equipped to handle.”

In Monroe County, 2,055 people cast early votes in person, according to information provided by elections Director Mollie Landfeld. In addition, 1,308 absentee ballots were requested and mailed out. Of those, Landefeld said 1,159 had been returned as of Sunday.

The total number of absentee ballots cast is somewhat higher than in previous years, with 2,805 total absentee ballots cast in 2016 and 2,184 in 2018.

“It’s hard to compare this year to 2020 as we were having lots of voters voting by absentee due to COVID,” Landefeld noted.

In Harrison County, 2,869 total requests for absentee ballots were received. Of those, 1,631 voted early in person at the office and 1,213 were mailed. A total of 1,349 non-affiliated voters participated in early voting along with 385 Democrats and 1,135 Republicans.