Northwest Iowa — Unsurprisingly, absentee/early voting is very popular this year. Most of that is undeniably due to the pandemic, but both parties have been urging their voters to vote early, even before COVID hit, because life and weather are uncertain.
We checked with the county auditors’ offices in the four-county area, and most of them tell us they’ve already had more absentee ballots turned in than they received in the primary election.
In O’Brien County, Auditor Barb Rohwer says they have had approximately 3,300 ballots turned in for the November 3rd General Election. For the primary, only about 2,400 people turned in absentee ballots. In the most recent Presidential Election year, O’Brien County processed a total of 2,114 absentee ballots.
In Osceola County, Auditor Rochelle Van Tilburg reports they have already had 1,257 absentee ballots returned. In the Primary Election, they had 984 absentee ballots turned in. In 2016 they had 876 absentee ballots.
In Lyon County, Auditor Jen Smit says they had 3,010 absentee applications. About 3,500 people voted absentee in the Primary.
In Sioux County, Auditor Ryan Dokter reports that 6,671 people have already voted absentee. That compares to 5,900 in the Primary, and 5,784 in 2016.
In addition to their regular hours, Iowa auditors’ offices will be open this Saturday, October 31st for early voting.
