The percentage of absentee ballots cast in Tuesday's primary in Winneshiek County set a record

Posted: Wed, Jun 3, 2020 9:03 AM

The COVID-19 epidemic had a big impact on voting in Tuesday's primary.

For Tuesday's primary, in-person voting was only 13 percent of the total votes cast.

Winneshiek County Auditor Ben Steines says 3,594 votes were cast by absentee ballots—double the amount cast in either 2016 (around 1,800) or 2018 (around 1,600). On election day on Tuesday, just 528 ballots were cast in person.

That means a total of 4,122 votes were cast—a healthy 45 percent turnout of registered voters. 87 percent of those votes were absentee ballots and 13 percent were in-person ballots.