Residents of Scott County will soon be able to request absentee ballots for the November election. Request forms will mailed in mid-August.
County Auditor Roxanna Moritz says because of the pandemic, request forms were mailed to all registered voters in Iowa before the state primary in June. And in Scott County 20,000 people voted absentee - easily beating the previous record of just 1,800.
So far, all the largest counties in Iowa are planning to mail out request forms.
"We're all running into the same scenarios - poll worker training, where we can be and where we can't be, and locations. So, we're all choosing to do the safe thing by insuring everyone gets the opportuniy to vote and putting a requst form in front of them"
The counties include Clinton, Dubuque, Black Hawk, Polk, Linn, and Woodbury.
Moritz now plans to send out the request forms around August 15th, but state law will prevent here from mailing absentee ballots until early October.
She estimates it will cost Scott County about 50,000 dollars to print, mail, and process the absentee ballots for the November election.