ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY — Early voting is going well at the 9 early voting sites in Anne Arundel County. Officials say about 24,000 votes have been cast so far. That's about 5,000 a day since it started a week ago.
"We start off kind of strong and it picks up and during the weekend it slows down and on Monday it picks back up and now we are seeing the trend where everybody was waiting or maybe procrastinating, they are all starting to get in so they can get in and get the ballot cast," said David Garreis, Director of the Anne Arundel County Board of Elections.
Early voting is off a little compared to the last Gubernatorial election. But that might be because of alternative voting methods.
"You might be able to attribute that to our vote by mail, we've had a pretty robust turnout for our mail in balloters," Garreis said.
There were 70,000 request for mail in ballots, so far about 32,000 vote by mail have been sent back. If you miss the deadline of early voting, Thursday at 8pm, you still have up to closing on election day to get your vote in.
"People may have waited to the last minute but they have until 8pm election day to get their ballot either postmarked in the mail or get it to one of our dropbox so we can pick it up," said Garreis.
Maryland is a state where anybody can put a ballot into a dropbox even though it's not yours. Maybe you want to help out a neighbor or a friend but official seriously don't be so cavalier with your ballot. Make sure you give it to someone you can trust.
"If you were a voter and someone comes up to you and wants to take a ballot, I caution you don't just give you your vote away to someone you don't know. It's like giving you credit card statement who you don't know," Garreis said.
You can still sign up to be an election judge in Anne Arundel County. You can do so until November 7.
