Today is shaping up as a record-breaking Election Day, Bartholomew County Clerk Jay Phelps said.
While Phelps said he is optimistic the record number of voters for a midterm election will be shattered today, he also believes more than 50 percent of all ballots cast will have come during early voting.
That would be higher than the 48.68 percent of early voters who cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election.
In contrast, 27.06 percent of the total votes in this year’s spring primary were made in advance.
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As of last Wednesday, 3,092 Bartholomew County residents cast early ballots, said Phelps, the county’s top election official.
But a surge in the final week turnout of early voting more than tripled that number, election officials said.
On Saturday alone, 1,070 ballots were cast at four different early voting locations, Phelps said.
When early voting was scheduled to end at noon Monday, ballot choices of more than 10,000 walk-in voters had already been counted, deputy elections supervisor Taylor Seagraves said.
With at least 100 voters in line when the cut-off time arrived, their votes were registered in a process that finally wrapped up at 1:30 p.m., Seagraves said.
When all forms of early voting (walk-in, mail-in, travel board, email) are considered, a total of 11,731 local ballots were cast prior to Election Day, Seagraves said.
That’s 23.3 percent of Bartholomew County’s 50,255 residents registered to vote in the 2018 general election.
“In each of the three midterm elections since the inception of walk-in voting in 2006, early voting totals were just above 2,000,” Phelps said on Nov. 1. “We’ve easily surpassed each of those elections.”
One of the biggest remaining question is whether the total number of residents casting ballots in this year’s midterm rises above 23,949, which is the record high turnout for a midterm election that was set in 1982.
Several efforts have been made to accommodate traditionalist voters who prefer to wait until Election Day.
Two teams — one Republican and one Democrat — spent most of the day Monday traveling to each of the 18 vote centers to set up equipment for today.
Although many government offices are closed today, the Columbus branch of the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Election Day.
But the branch, located at 745 Schnier St., will only process new, amended or replacement ID cards, driver’s licenses and learner permits for voting purposes.
The BMV says individuals who hold a driver’s license or ID card that expired after the last general election may use them as proof of identification for voting purposes.
A list of documents required to obtain a new state ID card or driver’s license can be found at myBMV.com.
If there is a record turnout today, a boost from the weather may be a factor. While there were earlier predictions of inclement weather, the Election Day forecast calls for partly sunny skies with a high in the upper 50s.
Although the courthouse is closed to the public today, the process of counting votes will begin there at 11 a.m. with mail-in ballots, Phelps said. Once the mail-ins are calculated, election board officials will turn their attention toward running totals from early walk-in voting, the clerk said.
All early votes will be posted on the county’s website immediately after the polls close at 6 p.m.
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Early voting totals in Bartholomew County for today’s general election.
Walk-in votes: 10,099
Mail-in ballots: 1,510
Travel Board: 75
Email: 47
Total early voters: 11,731
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