How many people have voted early in Iowa so far, and how does that compare to previous years?

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – Election Day is still two weeks away and Iowans are taking advantage of the opportunity to vote early.

Data from previous presidential elections shows that more people vote earlier than in other regular election years.

TV9 crews took a trip to a Linn County satellite voting location at Lindale Mall. The line was consistent most of the day. Many people said they came to early voting just out of convenience.

“The sooner the better,” said George Skubisz. “It's practical. Less crowds, so we wanted to get our votes to make it count.”

Skubisz was just one of many people who came to Lindale Mall early to cast their votes. He said Tuesday's crowds weren't too bad.

“I’m glad they have it,” said Lary Hostak, another person who voted earlier. “I just find it practical. For me, this is it.”

Skubisz and Hostak are just a few of thousands of Iowans voting early.

TV9 wanted to see how many people in the state are actually benefiting from early voting. It may be difficult to compare the numbers as totals because the nature of early voting has changed. That's why we looked at the numbers six days after early voting began.

Tuesday marks six days into the 2024 early election cycle. As of Tuesday, 327,210 absentee ballots have been requested across the state of Iowa. So far 112,318 have already been returned.

This number is difficult to compare with the last presidential election because COVID-19 drove up the number of absentee votes. Seven days into the 2020 early election cycle, 726,739 mail-in ballots had been requested and 217,393 had already been returned.

The last regular presidential election took place in 2016. Six days after early voting in 2016, 204,672 mail-in ballots were requested and only 53,747 were returned.

“We had 40 days of early voting in 2016, now we have 20, so we cut that in half,” Linn County Auditor Joel Miller said. “We used to be able to request a ballot paper up until the Friday before the election if you wanted to vote by postal vote. Now the deadline was yesterday at 5 p.m. So there was some kind of closure in the front and back.”

In Linn County specifically, 14,757 mail-in ballots were sent out and 8,406 people voted early in person at a satellite location such as Lindale Mall, according to Miller.

“If they return those ballots and the turnout we had here is about 53% of what we had in 2016, we’re off to a good start. We still have 14 days left,” Miller said.

Early voting is available until 5:00 p.m. Sunday, November 3 at Lindale Mall

Early voting is available until 5:00 p.m. Monday, November 4 at the Linn County Auditor's Office.

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