Early voting sets records in Mid-Missouri, across the country

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Across the nation, voter turnouts have set records with a week until the election.

By national estimates, as many as 66 million have already voted in the presidential election. It's almost 19 million more ballots cast at this time than in the 2016 presidential election, according to the US Elections Project.

Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon said, “if you add together all of the early voting totals, we have just about 20,000 people that have cast ballots so far.”

It is a shocking number when compared to the 5,853 absentee ballots at the same time four years ago.

Lennon believes the early ballots will total over 20,000 as the days go by. In-person absentee polling locations have been full of voters recently.

As of Tuesday, over 15% of eligible Boone County voters have already cast their ballot. Lennon said she predicts 90,000 ballots will be cast in the election.

Boone County is offering extended voting hours on election day.

Polling locations will be open from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. through the end of the week. Weekend polls are open from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday.

Cole County Clerk Steve Korsmeyer said the voter turnout is at least double that of 2016.

Korsmeyer said polling hours will also be extended to accomodate voters.

Data from the Secretary of State's office said more than 60,000 mail-in ballots and more than 630,000 absentee ballots were requested for the general election.

As of Sunday, more than half a million of those ballots have been returned to local election authorities.