Lyon Countians are taking advantage of the opportunity to vote now instead of standing in line on Election Day.
Advance voting began on Wednesday in the office of Lyon County Clerk Karen Hartenbower. So far, Hartenbower said, she is pleased with the turnout.
“It’s great,” she said. “We had 176 on Friday, and the most we’ve ever had in one day was 190.”
Hartenbower said the total vote on Monday was 214, the largest one-day turnout since advance voting was instituted in Lyon County.
Everyone in the office has been helping with the advance vote and with voter registration, as well.
“We’ve had ’em two deep at the counter. ... It’s been like a zoo here,” Hartenbower said. “But everybody’s real patient and real nice and they know it’s important. We’ve got all of our staff on voting.”
Monday was the last day to register to vote, and some who came in to register did not bring proof of identification.
“So that means that between now and election day, they have to bring in proof of ID. It’ll be in the system that they didn’t have ID,” Hartenbower said.
People who do not complete the process will be able to vote a provisional ballot, although the information must be supplied before the vote can be counted.
Monday was a busy day for registration, Hartenbower said.
“We stopped counting at 200 registrations in mid afternoon,” she said in an e-mail this morning.
Employees in the clerk’s office also are transferring voters electronically to other counties, on request, and “other counties are zapping to us” in reverse, she said.
The state’s record system for voting is a good one and should eliminate much of the potential for voter fraud, Hartenbower said. Names and Social Security numbers of all registered voters are contained within the system, and when duplications occur, the system automatically alerts county clerks and corrections are made. Only one entry is allowed by the system, no matter how many places that person is registered.
“I could go to every city in the state and register, and my name would only be in there once,” she said. “Our state’s really good about that.”
The unusually high number of registrations, in addition to the voters who needed to change their names or addresses, has put the clerk’s office behind in getting the information entered into the system.
“They have to be entered individually,” she said. “... Hopefully we’ll get ’em in this week. I mean, I’ve never seen such a stack in our drawer.”
Advance voting will end at noon on Monday, Nov. 3 to allow workers to update the county’s computer system in preparation for Election Day. Voter registration for this election ended Monday at 5 p.m.
madpoet (anonymous) says...
I have to pay vehicle tags in October. So while I'm right there, I go vote and save a trip to my polling place. Other "S" tags might want to do the same. It's very convenient.
October 21, 2008 at 3:39 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )