Early Voting Numbers Up in Williams County | Video

Evan Kruegel | 10/30/2012

Polls are expected to be very busy when North Dakotans cast their ballots one week from today. If you want to avoid the rush, County auditors suggest submitting an absentee ballot ahead of time. In Williams County, a record 3,375 absentee ballots were sent out, and over 2,200 have already been returned.

The absentee record for the county was set four years ago, when just over 2,400 ballots were turned in. Auditors expect to eclipse that total by early tomorrow.

Statewide, over 52,000 absentee and vote-by-mail ballots were sent, and over 35,000 have already been returned.

"Its overwhelming the amount of people that are coming in and voting absentee, as well as applications we`ve been getting in. There`s a lot of voters that haven`t voted since we started this new system, so there`s a lot of inactive voters that are going active because now they want to vote for this election,” said Williams County Auditor Beth Innis.

The auditors office is also running into issues with transient workers living in the area, some of whom head home during their time off.

"Some of them are asking for their ballots to be sent to Utah, Kentucky, because they`re home for a week or two weeks, and I very much doubt at this point in time that their ballots are going to get to them, but we`re going to make a concerted effort to get them out as well as we can."

If you don`t want to deal with the rush on election day, or if you`re going to be out of town, your only option is to fill out an absentee ballot. You can do this by visiting the courthouse at anytime before 5:00 p.m. on Monday.

It`s also important to know where your designated polling location is. For a full list of polling places by precinct, you can visit the Secretary of State`s office at vip.sos.nd.gov. Then, click on the voter information tab.

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