Early weekend turnout is record high, according to the Olmsted County Elections office.
With a record number of Olmsted County voters casting early ballots over the weekend, including Sunday for the first time, it appears that the election is much anticipated.
ROCHESTER — On Sunday afternoon, Addie and Ethan Wenz stopped outside the city-county Government Center for a brief selfie in the rain.
The pair was wearing their “I Voted” stickers after casting their early ballots.
Addie stated, “I wanted to make sure I had the time to do it.”
On Sunday, almost 1,000 people went to the Olmsted County early voting locations to cast their ballots. and Over 2,800 people went to the county’s early voting site on Saturday and Sunday to cast their ballots.
In-person early voting on the Sunday prior to the general election on Tuesday is being offered to Minnesota voters for the first time this year. That’s because the state Legislature established a bill in 2023 that increased access to absentee voting and early voting hours. The statute stipulated that on the two Saturdays and the Sunday prior to the Tuesday General Election, which is November 5, 2024, Minnesota county elections offices must offer in-person early voting.
In total, 30,400 early ballots had been accepted by Olmsted County election officials.
According to Luke Turner, the elections manager for Olmsted County, “we’re happy to do it because it’s a popular service.”
The enthusiasm for early voting is surpassing that of 2020, which established county records for early ballots. Most likely, the COVID-19 epidemic made that worse. Turner added that during Saturday early voting in 2020, around 1,000 people cast in-person ballots, setting a record at the time. That is greatly outweighed by the more than 1,400 ballots cast each day over the weekend.
Despite the large attendance, line wait times were kept to about 20 minutes by the efforts of all full-time, part-time county election personnel as well as a few temporary poll workers. Twelve and fourteen election helpers, in addition to the five full-time election staff members and four additional county employees, manned the polls at the two in-person voting locations on Sunday, according to Turner.
According to Addie and Ethan Wenz, they only wanted to confirm that they cast their ballots. The couple lives in a one-car home, and Addie works as a nurse. Ethan stated that he didn’t want to be trapped working from home without a car on election day because Addie was called in or had a long shift.
He remarked, “It’s a little bit excitement and a little bit logistics.”
Jeremy Carlson, who voted on Sunday at the Olmsted County Election Office, located at 2122 Campus Drive SE, stated that he was eager to cast his ballot and it was one of the reasons he wanted to vote early.
He declared, “I’ve never cast an early ballot before.” “I wanted to avoid waiting until Tuesday.”
Carlson added that he was worried about the possibility of huge lineups on election day.
The lines occasionally Some voters did have to wait for roughly twenty minutes on Sunday before casting their ballots.
According to Turner, anyone can cast an early ballot for whatever reason. He can see why people might be worried about long lineups given the election’s popularity. However, Turner noted that the fact that 30,400 Olmsted County voters have already cast ballots may help ease some of the gridlock on Election Day.
Over 90,000 voters cast ballots at Olmsted County polling places in the 2020 election.
According to Turner, “that indicates a sizable portion of people have already cast their ballots.”