Area experiences drop in early voting numbers

There just wasn't as much urgency to vote early for Tuesday's presidential election compared to four years ago, and thus the reason why Curry County Clerk Coni Jo Lyman says early voting numbers are down.

As early voting ended Saturday night in Curry County, a total of 5,666 cast ballots in-person, compared to the 6,269 voters that participated in early voting in 2008's presidential election.

"It was consistent day after day but it just wasn't swamped like it was in 2008," said Lyman about the Curry County Courthouse during early voting.

Roosevelt County Clerk Janet Collins said her office experienced a drop in early voters this year as well.

There were 2,565 people that voter early in-person this year, a drop from the 2,716 early votes in 2008.

Collins said the larger drop came from the absentee ballots.

"In 2008, we had 740 people vote by mail," Collins said. "This year we mailed out 443 ballots total. We're down in our early voting, mostly coming from mailed ballots."

The polls will be open election day from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Roosevelt and Curry County Courthouses. Absentee ballots will be accepted up until 7 p.m. Tuesday.