With just over a week left until Election Day, auditors from throughout the region are reporting they have already met or exceeded absentee voting totals from the 2016 cycle. Election officials from the seven counties in the listening area are projecting an approximately 37-percent increase in absentee voting, either by mail or through early in-person voting. As of Friday, Oct. 23, over 4,200 Carroll County residents had already submitted their ballots. Auditor, Kourtney Irlbeck, reminds voters they can drop them off at the courthouse, even if they were originally received through the mail.
Carroll County has approximately 14,700 registered voters, and Irlbeck expects close to 6,000 of them will have voted by Nov. 3. All seven auditor’s offices reported a large influx of ballots when absentee voting opened on Oct. 5 followed by a consistent flow of voters since then. Absentee voting is a well-established system in Iowa, and Guthrie County Auditor, Dani Fink, says her staff was more than prepared for high voter turnout.
She and her fellow auditors are receiving calls every day from voters worried about election security and their ballots being counted. Fink stresses that Iowa has some of the best absentee voting practices in the nation, and Iowans can be confident in the accuracy of the final tallies. Calhoun County Auditor, Robin Batz, said on Thursday her office remains busy nearly three weeks after absentee voting opened.
Overall turnout is expected to be higher than usual this year, but election officials will not know for certain until polls close. There are approximately 58,000 registered voters in the seven-county region and over 18,000 have already voted. Saturday was the last day to request an absentee ballot by mail, but people can still vote early at their local courthouse until 5 p.m. on Nov. 2. Mailed ballots must be postmarked no later than Nov. 2. As of Friday morning, 685,234 Iowans had already cast their votes. Anybody with questions or concerns can contact their respective auditor’s office or track their vote using an online tool from the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office, a link to which is included below.
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https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/absenteeballotstatus/absentee/search
