The Daviess County Clerk’s Office is prepared for record-breaking voter turnout this year. A total of 14,351 voters have cast their ballot over the first 10 days of early in-person voting, while 9,721 mail-in ballots have already been received and checked.
According to Deputy Clerk Richard House, the number of early in-person voters have remained steady over the last 10 days at around 1,600 per day.
“Typically in a presidential election, the number of absentee ballots returned falls between 1,500-1,800,” he said. “So far, we’ve counted about 25,000 total votes this election. That’s one-third of the registered voters in Daviess County and there’s still seven or eight days [of early in-person voting] left to go.”
The Clerk’s Office released a statement Friday regarding the removal of a ballot drop-off box at the former Burke’s Outlet in Towne Square Mall, where early in-person voting has also been taking place. The move was done to prevent voter confusion after two live ballots were incorrectly placed in the drop-off box instead of scanning them at the voting center.
“When the ballot box was checked, two marked ballots were discovered,” the office said. “The Board of Elections will discuss these ballots at their meeting next week on Tuesday.”
House said the drop-off box was removed immediately after realizing the errors. He said two E-scan machines were placed behind three voting slots set up at the voting site, but the two voters walked to the front of the room instead and placed their live ballots in the box instead of scanning them.
“We did it because we don’t want any ballots to be lost,” House said. “Once the box arrived there on the first day, it wasn’t two minutes until someone had put [the wrong] ballot in there. This is just a precaution.”
House said the Board of Elections and County Attorney Claud Porter will weigh in on deciding what to do with the ballots. It’s possible they could be determined valid and put through an E-scan machine, or it’s possible they could be voided if they were mail-in ballots that had been filled out incorrectly.
Despite the immediate removal of one drop-off box, six others can be accessed at various sites across the county. These sites include the Daviess County Courthouse, the Daviess County Operations Center, Western Kentucky University-Owensboro, Daviess County Public Library, Whitesville City Hall, and Doodle Bugs Market in Knottsville.
