Statewide, Iowa — Tens of thousands of Iowans have cast absentee ballots for today’s Primary Election. Secretary of State Paul Pate has the latest numbers.
Iowa set an all-time primary election participation record of nearly half a million voters in 2020 — during the pandemic when many voters opted to cast absentee ballots rather than vote in person. Pate isn’t making predictions about turnout for this year’s Democratic and Republican Primary Elections.
Pate says Iowans voting in-person today should double-check their polling location, as some have changed. That’s because of the once-every-decade process that has redrawn the boundaries of legislative and congressional districts.
Republican lawmakers shortened the time period for requesting an absentee ballot and the Iowa Capital Dispatch is reporting 461 voters in four of Iowa’s largest counties missed the deadline. Pate says he doesn’t have any statewide data, but isn’t surprised by those numbers from Polk, Linn, Scott and Black Hawk Counties.
Pate says county auditors have systems in place to notify voters if they didn’t make the absentee ballot request deadline and those voters have been able to vote in person at the county auditor’s office — or they can vote in-person today at their local precinct.
Iowans who’ve filled out an absentee ballot, but didn’t get it delivered have two options today. They can surrender it at their local precinct and cast a new ballot at the polling place or they can take the absentee ballot to their local county auditor’s office. Absentee ballots must be delivered to the auditor’s office by 8 pm tonight, or the ballot will not be counted. The Legislative Council voted last month to give Pate authority — in emergency situations like fires — to let county election officials move precinct locations.
The polls opened at 7 a.m. and will close at 8 p.m. A 2021 law change moved up poll closing time an hour.
