A touch screen is disclosed that includes conductive elements in a display area and connecting traces for routing the conductive elements to other locations. The connecting traces can be routed underneath or over existing opaque structures in the display area, instead of in border areas adjacent to the display area, to minimize the effect of the connecting traces on the display aperture ratio. The lengths and/or widths of these connecting traces as well as the number of parallel connecting traces used to connect to a particular element can be selected to balance the load on the drive and/or sense circuitry and on display pixels caused by the connecting traces.