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Last Day For Early Voting, Some Counties Begin To Tally Results

FLICKR / JOE HALL

Today is the final day for Iowans to vote early and skip the long lines Election Day. Some counties also are likely on Monday to begin tallying the over half-million ballots already cast. Those results are kept internal and won't be released until tomorrow, after 9:00 pm when polling is complete.

Secretary of State Paul Pate encourages anyone who’s not yet mailed in their absentee ballot to drop it off in-person at their county courthouse. All ballots must be postmarked by today.

"Sometimes [ballots] don't get postmarked," explains Pate. "I'm not picking on the post office, but sometimes they don't. And then we have to make an interpretation, and in many case the interpretation is, 'Nope, we're not going to count the ballot.'"

As of Saturday, the absentee ballots of 247,785 Democrats, 205,904 Republicans, 137,679 thousand no-party voters, and 2,019 who are registered as "other," have been received. This is nearly a quarter of all registered Iowa voters.