With early voting attracting more than a thousand voters to Eagle Park over the first couple of weeks, poll workers and election officials said the pace of early voting continues to be strong and steady.
Through early Friday morning — roughly halfway through early voting ahead of Election Day on Nov. 5 — 1,407 votes had been cast at the early voting precinct, Brown County Clerk Pearletta Banks said.
Banks said she believes that the number of people who vote early or who cast an absentee ballot likely will be greater than the number from the last presidential general election in 2020. That year, 4,695 county residents cast their votes either through early voting or by absentee ballot.
“I think we’re going to surpass that 4,695,” Banks said.
Meanwhile, anyone wishing to vote by absentee ballot must have their absentee ballot returned to the clerk’s office by the deadline of Thursday, Oct. 24, Banks said.
As of last week, several hundred people had requested absentee ballots. Additionally, more than 300 county residents who are overseas, including service members, had received email ballots, Banks said.
While early voting has been relatively uneventful, additional poll workers were brought in last week to operate an additional line to accommodate voters.
Last week, however, two Brown County Democratic Party officials, one also a candidate in the November election, said that several political signs for Democratic candidates had been destroyed, vandalized or stolen from the early voting precinct at Eagle Park.
County Democratic Party Chairman and candidate for Brown County Commissioner District 3 Justin Schwenk and Vice Chair Lora Lewis Rudd said Thursday that multiple campaign signs had been targeted.
Schwenk forwarded photos of destroyed or vandalized signs to The Democrat. He said in an email, “It was reported to me that several political signs were torn down and vandalized at the Eagle Park early voting location. I repaired the signs and redeployed them.”
Schwenk had taped one sign back together and written on it in black marker, “We can do better.”
Schwenk said three signs for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris had been destroyed, one sign for governor candidate Jennifer McCormick was ripped down, as was one for Schwenk’s candidacy at the early voting site. Schwenk said a separate sign for his candidacy also was destroyed at his home.
Rudd said she has received reports from local residents of political signs being stolen or damaged around the county — something that she said also has happened in past years. But she said seeing signs vandalized outside the early voting precinct at Eagle Park felt different.
“This is striking, bold,” she said Thursday. “It felt like someone was emboldened to do this.”
