Early voting tallies up in Crawford, Sebastian counties

The number of early voters in Crawford and Sebastian counties during the 2010 election cycle is likely to surpass the total in the comparative 2006 election.

Early voting began statewide on Oct. 18. Early voting concludes at 5 p.m. today (Nov. 1).

Angie Hatwig, deputy county clerk in Sebastian County, said it is possible that up to 11,000 of the county’s 66,199 registered voters will early vote. As of 1:30 p.m. on Monday (Nov. 1), 9,802 voters had voted early in Sebastian County. That number was up to 9,973 by 2:25 p.m.

The situation was similar in Crawford County, where 3,657 of the county’s about 29,000 registered voters had early voted by 1:30 p.m. The number was up to 3,744 by about 2:45 p.m.

“They are lined up out the door and down the hall,” said Crawford County Clerk Teresa Armer. “I can tell you it’s (early voter turnout) about what I expected: heavy. … It’s not as much as in a presidential year, but it is heavy.”

Armer didn’t have readily available the early voting figures from 2006 — a comparative cycle with a governor’s race and mid-term Congressional elections. However, she said she’s confident the early voting turnout will exceed that of 2006.

In Sebastian County, there were 9,106 early votes cast in 2006 and 18,103 early votes cast in 2008 early voting. Early voting trends in Sebastian County indicate that up to 20% more votes will be cast in early voting than the 2006 election.

The statewide trends also show an increase in the percentage of early voters. As of 4 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 30), there were more than 237,556 early votes cast statewide (Cross County had not yet reported its total.), according to figures from the Arkansas Secretary of State’s office In the 2006 cycle, there were roughly 224,657 early votes cast among the 774,680 total votes statewide — or about 29%.

The Saturday report from the Secretary of State showed early voting counts for the following counties in the Fort Smith region:
Crawford County: 3,355
Franklin County: 1,660
Logan County: 1,582
Polk County: 1,607
Sebastian County: 9,009