Absentee votes surpass past midterm elections

One of the topics debated by the Monroe County Election Board earlier this fall was whether satellite voting sites should have been authorized for the 2010 midterm elections.

Proponents argued that the polls are often overly crowded and that people are unable to make it to the polls on Election Day.

The sites were not authorized, however, because members of the election board did not believe there would be abundant voter turnout in 2010, as there wasn’t in 2006.
However, the board was wrong, according to the numbers released by Monroe County Clerk Jim Fielder.

As of Oct. 29, 9,066 votes had been cast absentee.

This surpasses the number of absentee votes in the last midterm elections by 1,129 votes.

Currently, 2,235 votes have been cast by mail, 6,693 have been cast in the Curry Building, 115 have been cast by the Travel Board, five have been cast by fax and 18 have been cast by e-mail.

“You can only fax or e-mail if you are overseas or military,” Fielder said.
He said the e-mail and faxing option has been very successful since implemented in 2006.

Monday was the last day for early voting, and the final number of votes cast absentee will be released shortly after.

Fielder said there is no way to use the number of absentee votes to project the turnout on Tuesday.

“Right now, absentee has opened up so much, we don’t know if this is taking away from the polls or if there will be a good turnout,” Fielder said.

— Mary Kenney