Northwest Iowa — This Tuesday (November 6th) is mid-term election day. And while the majority of us will vote at the polls, absentee voting remains popular in northwest Iowa.
Some people are actually going to be out of the area during election day. Other people vote early just to get it out of the way, or just in case something comes up on election day. Other people, such as the homebound, vote absentee so they don’t have to go to the polls. With some tight races on the ballot, many political campaigns have been trying to get people to vote early to make sure they get their vote.
We checked around with the area auditors’ offices and asked them about absentee voting numbers.
In O’Brien County, they report that as of Monday, 1777 absentee ballots had been requested, and 1615 had been returned. In Lyon County, 1671 ballots had been requested, and 1509 had been returned. In Sioux County as of Friday, 4684 absentee ballots had been requested and 3696 had been returned. And in Osceola County as of Friday, 682 had been requested and 562 had been returned.
Statewide, 448,000 absentee ballots had been received as of Friday. That’s over 20 percent of registered voters.
Campaigns have also been asking people to vote early so that they can focus their efforts on people who have not yet voted.
One thing that shouldn’t be a factor this year in northwest Iowa is the weather. While it will be cool, cloudy, and windy, there is no mention of precipitation in the forecast, let alone snow. At last check, the next mention of snow wasn’t until Thursday.
If you still have an absentee ballot, the auditors’ offices want you to turn it in. Even if you didn’t vote on it, they’d still like it back — especially if you’ve changed your mind and have decided to vote at the poll instead. If they don’t have your absentee ballot, you won’t be allowed to vote. Even if you’re not going to vote, they’d still like the absentee ballots back for record-keeping purposes.
