Election Day in Ames Results and More

Early voting took some of the waiting out of the voting process at Ames precincts Tuesday.

When polls opened Tuesday in Ames there were not lines of voters out in the streets like in the Northeastern states, one voter said after taking just five minutes to cast a ballot at Bethesda Lutheran Church.

The typically busy precinct did have a line waiting out the door before polls opened at 7 a.m., but it was not as busy as in 2008, said Darlene Schmidt, a certified election official volunteering for Story County.

“We were way, way busier,” Schmidt said.

By about 8 a.m., 55 people had cast a ballot in person.

Schmidt said about 37 percent of the registered voters in her precinct had already voted by Saturday.

A handful of polling locations reported that 37 to 47 percent of registered voters had already cast a ballot before the polls opened Tuesday and precinct co-chairs weren't sure if that count had been updated since Friday.

Saint Andrews Church on Colorado Ave., home of precinct 3-5, did have a short line, that poll workers said had been steady all day.

Some were voting for the first time and others like Leonard Boyd said it was the third polling place he went to. He was told he went to the wrong place the first time and sent to a wrong location a second time.

By 3 p.m. about 22 percent of the county's 68,000 registered voters had cast a ballot in person on election day.

The number does not include the number of absentee ballots turned in. Voters can turn in those ballots in person until 9 p.m. tonight if they hadn't mailed them by 5 p.m. Monday.

All that early voting didn't help reduce waiting times at polling places closest to Iowa State University. Students who voted at the Memorial Lutheran Church said they waited anywhere from 90 minutes to four hours before they were able to cast a ballot, in part because they registered to vote at the polls and each registration had to be confirmed with a call to the Story County Auditor's Office.

Near 5,000 registered voters took advantage of early voting locations set up throughout the county since mid-October. People were also allowed to vote in person at the Story County Auditor's Office in person or mail in their ballot.