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Early Voting Begins in Iowa

Clay Masters
/
IPR

Early voting for the 2014 midterm elections begins Thursday in Iowa.

A record number of absentee ballots for a midterm election have gone out to Iowa voters according to Secretary of State Matt Schultz. 2014 requests for absentee ballots are about double, compared with 2010.

"We've got about 60,000 Democrats who have asked for absentee ballots," Schultz said. "We've got more than 30,000 Republicans and about 25,000 no-party voters. So you do the math and we're getting close to 100,000."

Schultz said he anticipates more Iowans voting absentee in the future due to its convenience.

In 2010, more than 30% of Iowa voters cast absentee ballots.  The percentage of Iowa absentee voters for the 2012 presidential election was 43%. 

Clay Masters
Clay Masters is the senior politics reporter for MPR News.