DAVENPORT, Iowa — The polls have officially opened in Iowa for this fall's election for president, members of the U.S. House of Representatives, state lawmakers and more. There was a steady stream of people going into the Scott County Administrative Center to vote on the first day of early voting Wednesday.
"It has been busy, and we certainly expected that," Scott County Auditor Kerri Tompkins said. "I expect this week to be busy. Probably next week it'll settle down, and then the last week before Election Day, we'll pick back up again."
It's the first presidential election since Iowa passed voting law changes that shortened the time allowed for voting by mail, voting early in-person and voting on Election Day.
Scott County has additional early voting sites this year. It's a record amount, Tompkins said. There are 14 satellite locations in addition to the Scott County Administrative Center.
"So lots of opportunities because there's so many and they're all staggered times," she said. "We have 76 hours outside of our normal business hours for people to vote. So that's pretty exciting."
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Wednesday is also the first day county auditors can start mailing absentee ballots to voters who requested them. Scott County sent out 11,630 ballots. Tompkins doesn't compare it to 2020 because of the pandemic but said it's significantly lower than in 2016.
"It's hard to say, so we hope that people make that up and come in and vote in-person early or on Election Day," she said.
To request an absentee ballot, Iowans need to download the absentee ballot request form and submit it by mail or in-person to their county auditor’s office. The deadline to request an absentee ballot is Monday, Oct. 21, by 5 p.m. The county auditor must receive the request by then to send a ballot.
Even if you receive more than one request form in the mail, you only need to send one in to your county auditor's office.
"We had one voter that received seven of them in the mail," Tompkins said. "Parties are sending them out, other national organizations are sending them out. So if you've already filled one out and we have it, you don't need to do another one. As long as we have one, you're good."
