Early voting running well ahead of recent presidential elections

Frequent visitors to the Putnam County Courthouse have probably noticed a little extra traffic in recent weeks.

The added courthouse visitors are due to an upsurge in early voting for the Nov. 8 election.

Much like trends being noted across the country, early voting is up in Putnam County, running well ahead of the 2008 and 2012 participation levels.

Putnam County Clerk Heather Gilbert reported having 1,278 early voters come through the courthouse as of Tuesday afternoon.

That number is up from the same point in the last two presidential election cycles.

With two weeks to go in 2012, early voters totaled 852. Even in the historic election of 2008, the number was 844.

“We’re pretty steady,” poll worker Juanita Austin said of voting traffic on Tuesday.

“They’ve actually been coming six or seven at a time rather than just filtering in,” Gilbert noted. “We keeping saying ‘the tour bus just pulled up outside.’”

Austin said the change has been notable to her and fellow poll worker Judy Miller.

“This is the first time it’s been like that,” Austin said. “Last time they all waited until the last minute.”

It’s unclear if there will be another last-minute surge, but if so, the county can be expected to far exceed the total early vote numbers of 2,354 in 2012 and 2,793 in 2008.

In an AP report dated Friday, more than 4.4 million votes had been cast nationwide, well ahead of the rate for the same period in 2012.

While the workers have certainly noted the increased traffic, they aren’t complaining.

“I love it when it’s busy,” Miller said. “It’s been just fine.”

“You don’t get bored,” Gilbert added.

The increased traffic has not been all that surprising to Gilbert and staff.

“We were anticipating we could be busy the whole time,” Gilbert said. “The first day we had 141. And I think we’ve decided we’ve had about 130 voters a day as of Monday.”

The high point came Friday with 160 voters.

Early voting is available on the second floor of the Putnam County Courthouse Monday through Friday during regular courthouse hours, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

The courthouse will also be open for voting on the next two Saturdays, Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, from 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

Early voting concludes at noon on the day before the election, Monday, Nov. 7.

Of course, the polls will be open across the county from 6 a.m-6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Even with the added early turnout, the controversies surrounding the 2012 election — both with the major presidential candidates and accusations of voter fraud and “fixed” elections — have been on the minds of voters.

“The girls said everyone is wanting to talk about how controversial this election is,” Gilbert said.

In spite of all this, as the overseer of elections for the county, Gilbert wishes to assure Putnam County voters that their votes are safe.

The machines are never actually hooked up to the internet, so they can’t be hacked.

“They’re not hooked up online. There’s no port to hook them up online,” Gilbert said. “And our computer that we do that tabulation on is not hooked up online.

“I want people to be comfortable that their vote counts and their vote is safe,” Gilbert said. “We’ve checked out everything that’s been in the news — both with our vendor and on the news.”

Gilbert also noted that the machines that have reported problems in recent elections are Diebold machines, but Putnam County uses MicroVote Infinity machines.

She also said that Putnam was not one of the 56 Indiana counties named in the ongoing Indiana State Police investigation of Indiana Voter Registration Project.

“The last thing we need is to have a problem in this controversial election,” Gilbert said. “So (we’re) very thankful not to be part of that investigation.”

While thrilled with turnout so far, Gilbert wants to promote voter confidence and make sure that even more people get out and vote.

“The most important thing I’d like to get out to voters is that their vote is safe,” Gilbert said.

She paused before adding the obvious “and they need to get out and vote.”