Seventy percent of Iowans who voted early this year did so in-person, either at a satellite voting location or in their county auditor’s office.
Secretary of State Paul Pate says some voters waited in long lines to vote early and there may be options to ease that congestion in 2028. “Whether we have more satellite voting sites, whether the actual county administrative office or auditor’s office takes some different approaches to how they lay out their physical format to accommodate,” Pate said.
Pate cites Polk County as an example, which has 170 voting precincts. “When you’re doing early voting at the records numbers you saw and you’re taking 170 locations and you’re really making it into one, you’re going to have a line, so it just means we have to adapt,” Pate said. “It will be something that auditors will have to look at.”
Over 70,000 people voted early in Polk County, which includes Des Moines, and nearly 40-thousand voted in Linn County, where Cedar Rapids and Marion are located. In total, nearly half a million Iowans cast absentee ballots in the 20-day early voting period before Election Day. About 45% were Democrats, 34% were Republicans and 20% were independents.
Iowa law allows for a 20 day period of early voting. Pate has been an advocate to expanding that be five days to give county auditors more time to mail absentee ballots and voters more time to return those ballots in the mail.
