Voters casting ballots early for Nov. 5 election

As of late Thursday afternoon, 127 voters had cast their ballots at the Douglas County Courthouse as part of advance voting for the Nov. 5 general election.

Advance voting got off to a strong start Wednesday, with 77 people coming in to vote at the advance voting booth set up at the courthhouse. Another 50 had cast their ballots Thursday by 4:50 p.m.”Advance voting is going great,” said Patty Jaimes, Douglas County Clerk.

Jaimes said her office mailed out 2,500 ballots Wednesday to people who want to vote by mail. (Download a ballot application at election.ljworld.com.)

Those requests had been coming in to her office since August, but Wednesday was the first day they could be mailed out to voters.

She said another batch of mail ballots will go out Thursday and she will continue to send them out as people make requests.

All of the mail ballots must be received at the courthouse by 7 p.m. on Nov. 5, election day. The advance ballots cast at the courthouse and the advance ballots mailed in will be counted with all the other ballots that are cast at the county’s polling places on election day.

Jaimes said there seems to be a high interest in mail ballots in this year’s election, which includes races for governor, attorney general and congressional seats.

“Not only have the political parties sent out applications for people to send in, but you have campaign workers for candidates going to people door to door to fill out the application,” she said.