Voter turnout Tuesday in Butler County was about the same as the 2008 presidential election when 68 percent of registered voters cast ballots, according unofficial election results.

The county’s Republican stronghold handily voted for Mitt Romney, Republican presidential hopeful, casting 102,226 for him and 59,282 for Democratic President Barack Obama.

Butler County accounted for about four percent of Romney’s votes in Ohio and about 2 percent of Obama’s votes in the state.

Obama garnered more votes in the county’s two cities. In Hamilton, about 12,000 votes were cast for Romney and just more than 9,000 for Obama.

The Butler County unofficial results for Middletown show a close race between the candidates, with 8,001 votes for Romney and 7,903 for Obama. Prescient results for Middletonians voting in Warren County were not available Wednesday.

In the townships, Romney was a clear winner. In Fairfield, 11,793 votes were cast for Romney and 7,561 for Obama. In West Chester Twp., Romney received 20,120 votes and Obama, 10,516.

The Butler County Board of Elections will process 6,880 provisional ballots during the next 10 days along with additional valid absentee ballots received and conduct the elections official count about Nov. 20, according to Deputy Director Jocelyn Bucaro.

In 2008, 175,132 votes were cast in the count at a time when about 260,000 voters were registered, which was 67 percent.

Bucaro said the voting books are much “cleaner” now, with duplicate registrations largely eliminated bringing the number of registered voters to about 239,000 this year.