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As of October 31st, theJohnson County Election Office has reported 168,610 voters cast their ballots during advance voting. That number is exceeding early in-person votes in 2020.
Dr. Andrea Vieux is an associate professor of Political Science at Johnson County Community College and says it's not surprising to see the high number of voters for this election cycle.
"I would say there's probably a few reasons, certainly the visibility of this election," Dr. Vieux said. "In Johnson County politics wise, we've seen some turnout increases over the last several cycles for example in the local election last year, there was a higher than normal turnout as well."
She said issues with the mail-in ballots may have also caused more voters to decide to do advance voting.
"There might be people who have previously done mail-in ballots that feel that's easier to do than the in-person advance voting," Dr. Vieux said. "We won't know until election day and how many mail ballots we get back, but that could also be driving some of it."
Dr. Viuex says more young voters are showing interest in this election cycle.
"I'm a proponent of young folks getting out to vote and that's probably one of the harder demographics to mobilize because they're usually first time voters. And they haven't formed that habit just yet, but what we have seen is a growing interest among young people in this election and in elections more generally pay more attention to politics and policy," Dr. Viuex said. "And I think some of the excitement of what we're seeing is from younger people who are getting to vote for the first time, and or are just more engaged and some of that turnout might also be related to that."
She says while there's been some less than positive discourse, one of the silver linings is seeing more people get out to cast their ballot.
"I think it is very powerful , I mean certainly, from a political science perspective having turnout higher is a good thing from the sense of you have a more representative election when more of your voting population is voting, so when you have lower turnout, then you have the problem of how representative was this election," Dr. Viuex said. "If the turnout does continue to trend in an upwards direction, which I suspect will probably be the case in general, that's a good thing because that means more people are getting more interested.
She says the long lines we've seen throughout the early voting process is powerful to see.
"The lawn chairs and the lining up, we're talking about a bunch of people who probably disagree on very core things, and they're out in line together and for the most part, it's remained relatively civil and I think that's a good takeaway for the selection," Dr. Vieux said. "Sometimes the national rhetoric can bleed into local politics, but it seems to me that even though people may seem to disagree on who should be the president or who should be elected to the state house, people are still actually respecting other people's decisions and choices."
While presidential elections tend to have a bigger spotlight when it comes to political engagement, Dr. Viuex urges voters to also pay close attention to the state and local races and candidates.
"Certainly it's nice that people are interested in the national politics but one takeaway with some of these elections is we're going to see more interest in local races and people really getting to understand how much local races affect their day to day lives," Dr. Vieux said. "Set aside the noise in terms of where you think this race is trending or what is being reported and really focus, do the research , understand what the policy positions are with these different candidates and political parties - make your own choices and get out and vote because sometimes I think people think elections are predetermined and they aren't and turnout really will have an impact on your lives for the next four years."
For more information on advance voting and sample ballots, click here.