With the March Primary coming up next Tuesday, early voting numbers are down considerably from four years ago.

Summit County Board of Elections Director Ron Koehler tells AkronNewsNow why he thinks the flow of people at the Board of Elections has been pretty sparse.

"Statistically, we know that Democrats take advantage of early voting much more than Republicans do and I think the Democrats are less interested in this year's primary than in 2008."

 He says at one time during the week, less than 1,000 people showed up at the Board of Elections for early voting.

Koehler says there are many differences between this year's GOP Primary and the 2008 election.

"We had people lined up outside waiting to get in to vote during the last several days of over-the-counter voting during the last few days of the '08 primary, but it wasn't anywhere near that in this year's primary."

 He (Koehler) says in 2008, when President Obama was was running against Senator Hilary Clinton, interest was as high as he's seen.

Koehler says the Board has made some changes in this year's primary according to state law.

"Walk-in voting here at the Board of Elections will end Friday at 6pm."

 The Board of Elections also encourages those who are mailing in an absentee ballot request to do so as soon as possible.