DES MOINES, Iowa — Local 5 will have live election results at this link Tuesday starting at 8 p.m.
New election laws signed in 2021 might change the way the voting experience works for everyone headed to the polls Tuesday for primaries.
Here’s what to keep in mind as you cast your ballot in the Iowa primaries:
- Polling places close at 8 p.m. for all elections. (Originally 9 p.m.)
- Absentee ballots must physically be at election offices by the time polls close on election day. (This means postmarked ballots and Intelligent Mail no longer count)
- There is a 24/7 absentee ballot drop box at the Polk County Election Office.
- Employees are allowed 2 hours off work to go vote. (Previously 3 hours was allotted)
- Your polling place may have changed due to redistricting: this tool from the Iowa Secretary of State can help.
So, if you still have that absentee ballot, do not mail it in today.
Instead, you can either drop it off at the Polk County Election Office or surrender it altogether and fill out a paper ballot at your polling place.
Polk County Auditor and Commissioner of Elections Jamie Fitzgerald explained how this process works on Twitter:
According to Gov. Kim Reynolds, the laws were passed in order to ensure the integrity of future Iowa elections.
For more informative tweets regarding the election, you can view Polk County's election landing page.
"Voter ID is really the ace card if you will, because that means only you get to vote where no one else is going to have a chance to take your paper ballot and place it in a machine or vote it absentee," Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate told Local 5.
To familiarize yourself with everything you need to know before voting, check out Local 5’s coverage here.