Election: 1-in-4 Lancaster County voters have already cast their ballot

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - With exactly two weeks until Election Day, approximately 25% of Lancaster County voters have voted early. That’s slightly above the Nebraska total, which shows about 21% of registered Nebraska voters have cast their ballot.

Election Commissioner Dave Shively said about 50,000 early ballots have been returned, either through the mail or via in-person voting. Ballots were first sent out on September 28 and in-person voting started on October 5.

Political Party	Early Request or In-Person	Percent of Total
Republican	28,419	34.1%
Democrat	38,560	46.2%
Nonpartisan	15,691	18.8%
Libertarian	719	0.9%
Total	83,389	100%

Also, according to voter data updated on September 30 on the Lancaster County Election Commissioner’s website, Lancaster County has surpassed 200,000 registered voters for the first time ever. That’s about a 2.5% increase in the last 30 days. As of August 30, there were 195,824 registered voters.

Political Party	City of Lincoln	Rural Lancaster	Total	Percent of Voters
Republican	66,900	12,391	79,291	39.6%
Democrat	66,367	5,520	71,887	35.9%
Libertarian	3,015	284	3,299	1.6%
Nonpartisan	41,354	4,647	46,001	22.9%
Total	177,636	22,842	200,478	100%

Despite Republicans outnumbering Democrats in Lancaster County by about 7,400 voters, more than 10,000 more Democrats have cast their ballot in Lancaster County than Republicans so far.

10/11 NOW also requested information from Nebraska’s Secretary of State, which shows 262,313 ballots have been cast from 1,252,089 registered Nebraska voters, or about 21% of voters.

Political Party	Registered Voters	Percent of Voters	Requested Ballots	Request Rate	Returned Ballots	Return Rate
Republicans	599,087	47.8%	218,030	36.4%	102,909	47.2%
Democrats	366,099	29.2%	180,730	49.4%	114,640	63.4%
Libertarian	17,194	1.4%	3,989	23.2%	1,724	43.2%
Nonpartisan	269,709	21.5%	86,032	31.9%	43,040	50.0%
Total	1,252,089	100%	488,781	39.0%	262,313	53.7%

Based on State data, a higher percentage of Democrats are requesting early ballots and returning early ballots, however, registered Democrats are outnumbered by about 233,000 voters in Nebraska.

In Nebraska, every voter was sent an early ballot request form, but the form needs to be filled out and returned to the local county election commissioner in order to then get a ballot in the mail.

Over the last two months, the number of registered voters in Nebraska has increased by nearly 24,000 statewide, or about 2%. Republican registration is outpacing Democrat registration, as Republicans increased by 13,211 voters or about 2.3% between August and October. During that same time frame, Democrats increased by 6,016 voters, or about 1.6%.

The General Election is November 3.