Rapid City, S.D. (KELO) — Election day is a little more than a month away, but some people are opting to vote early. Absentee voting started on September 20th and already thousands of ballots have been cast.
Over the past week over 2,200 people have stopped by the Pennington County auditor’s office to get their votes in early.
“I think a lot of people realized that they can come in and absentee vote in person and I think also some of them learned that they can mail in the application. Get their ballot mailed to them so that they don’t have to come down,” Pennington County Auditor Cindy Mohler said.
Currently, over 6,000 ballots have been mailed to people who requested them.
“It’s wonderful to be able to get my ballot ahead of time, to be able to go out and do the studying. Read the whole thing, do the studying, and there are some really good websites to do some studying to read pros and cons and to be able to fill it out at my leisure,” Rapid City Voter Michelle Rowan said.
This early voting is available for anyone within Pennington County Limits and allows everyone the ability to make sure that their voice is heard come election day, just in case they can’t make it on that day.
“You know, sometimes I think it’s people that are heading out of town, especially in November you know the people are getting ready. The snowbirds are getting ready to head south, so I think we see a lot of that. I think people, in general, are becoming a little bit, they like the convenience, let’s put it that way,” Mohler said.
“It’s very important because we are actually going to be out of the county on November 5th this year. So we really did need to be able to vote early and I know that happens with a lot of people,” Rowan said.
Absentee voting is open statewide, not just in Pennington County. You will need to show your photo ID as well.
This year’s ballot is a little longer than some years so voters are encouraged to look at a sample ballot ahead of time to make the process a little easier.
