KOOTENAI COUNTY, Idaho — Some Idaho voters began casting their ballots on Tuesday, but there’s confusion among voters going to elections offices since each county can start early voting at different times.
“Idaho law allows us to do up to three weeks of early voting,” said Kootenai County elections director Asa Gray. “We typically do two weeks before each election just because of the sheer amount of things we have to do before each election. We even poll worker training occurring still this week.”
In Kootenai County, early voting begins on October 19. Other counties, such as Nez Perce County, were able to start voting early on Tuesday.
Election officials want to make sure everyone is ready to vote before they arrive at the elections office.
If you’ve changed your address or name since the last time you voted, you can go online to VoteIdaho.gov or come to an election office to change that. Make sure you bring your ID and proof of address if you need it.
“Often times, early voting, while we do see some lines, a lot of times it can be a quicker process than election day, especially in a big election like this,” said Gray. “Of course we always do have absentee voting where people can request a ballot sent to them by mail.”
Absentee ballots have to be requested each year by filling out an online form.
One voter said having an absentee ballot allows her to do more research on each candidate and measure.
“I like the opportunity to go online and check out, since we don’t get much information on any of the candidates. I like to do a little bit of homework on that,” Karen Doke said.
Early voting will begin at the Kootenai County elections office next Monday and continue through October 30.
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