by Jordan McAlpine
Agriculture, wrestling and the Hawkeye State. That’s Iowa. However, there’s one more thing you can add to that list- politics.
The 2020 election has been one like no other for more reasons than one. For a state that’s home to one of the country’s most important Caucus and has political rallies and campaigns in a seemingly never ending cycle, this time of year is always an eventful one every four years.
In Western Iowa’s Pottawattamie County, that’s no different and it’s shaping up to be another busy Election Day. With a pandemic and increased influence of social media and technology, there’s one more factor playing a big difference from years past. Absentee and early voting.
“With the pandemic, we’ve obviously seen a big increase in absentee voting, and are mainly just trying to keep everybody safe,” said Kristi Everett, first deputy auditor of elections for Pottawattamie County.
Everett said this year has required a lot of flexibility and creative thinking. At the same time, early voting has been a gamechanger and will surely help come Tuesday.
“It’s been very important,” Everett said. “We have over 25,000 ballots in our office. My goal was to see 25-30,000 people voted early in Pottawattamie County, just to try and keep the stress off of the polls on Election Day, so we’re falling within the numbers that I was hoping we’d be at.”
Everett said the highest number of absentee ballots previously recorded in Pottawattamie County was around 18,000. It’s been an adjustment because of that this year.
As for those who haven’t submitted their ballot ahead of time, the county has put several new protective measures in place for Election Day. Social distancing will be a key focus and all workers will be wearing masks and shields, along with gloves. Another big focus will be sanitizing voting stations and keeping workers at the same station, as in most past elections they would rotate jobs throughout the day.
Across the river, the impact of early voting has been felt just as much, if not more at the Douglas County Election Commission office. The numbers prove it.
“In some ways it’s made it easier,” said Christopher Carithers, chief deputy election commissioner for Douglas County. “It’s easier for us to deal with the early votes and the mail-in ballots.”
Carithers said during the 2016 presidential general election, Douglas County recorded just under roughly 40,000 early votes. To date, the election office has over 150,000 early ballots turned in.
“We were up to 34% early vote in the 2016 and 2018 elections,” Carithers said. “This year we are expecting 70% early votes and the other 30% at the polls on Election Day, which is a complete reversal of the ratio. The main thing is to not get a lot of people together in one place at one time, so it’s really changed the dynamic of what we do.”
In addition to the physical changes for in-person voting, Carithers said as people are more invested than ever. With so much attention, he thinks it’ll lead to a bigger turnout.
“There’s more passion and there’s more enthusiasm,” Carithers said. “The highest turnout we’ve had in Douglas County previously was 2008, and I think we’re going to break that as far as voting in person. Everyday we’re breaking a new record of the number of people that come here to vote early.”
“Previously a strong day was 400 voters coming through our office to vote, yesterday (Thursday) we hit 1,059. The day before that was 893, and then 700, then 600, but we’ve been holding in the 500-600 range.”
For either county and everywhere else around the country for that matter, the big focus is simply to make sure people get out and make their vote count. Especially for the younger generations, who have played a big part in the uptick of early voting.
“I think it’s very important for the younger generation to have their voice be heard,” Everett said. “I will say we’ve seen quite a few of our college kids get more involved requesting ballots and we’ve been mailing to different colleges across the country, so that’s encouraging. I do think they’re stepping up and taking a role in this election.”
Across state lines, the same can be said.
“It’s very important,” Carithers said. “The older generation has voted traditionally in higher numbers, and it’s time that the younger generations take that mantle and run with it. I think this election is way ahead of the curve in getting the younger voters to vote, and take an active role in selecting the next leaders of the country and the state.”
So far, the numbers point in that direction. In addition to the increased number of early votes, all signs seem to indicate there will be more interest as a whole this year.
“I think the turnout is going to be a little bit higher than normal,” Carithers said. “Normally we run about 70% in a presidential election. We hit 72% in the 2008 presidential, and I think we’re going to be right at that 72%, but I would not be surprised if we bumped that up a little bit. With so many people voting early, it just depends on how many people are still going to come out on Tuesday.”
That’s still the big question, how will people show up on Tuesday? No matter what the case, early voting has definitely played a key role. It might even set a precedent for a new normal of voting going forward.
“I think it might,” Everett said. “We’re going to see that people are going to realize voting at home is safe and convenient. We’ve had a lot of people call in and say ‘oh that was really easy, I could do my research at home on my own time’, which is very true. I see the trend possibly going that way more and going forward we will be seeing more absentee voting and early voting because of the convenience of it and the ease of it.”
“I also think our younger generations are comfortable with it. The older generation seem to be the ones that really like to get out and physically be there on Election Day. I feel with the younger generations, just as long as they voted, they’re good whether they voted early or on Election Day. It’ll be interesting to see what happens going forward.”
