Franklin County holds first election in a COVID-19 world

Franklin County held their first election since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last week and the process was very different from previous years.

Rather than manning several polling places across the county, all voting in this year's primary election was done at the Franklin County Convention Center.

With plenty of room to keep people six feet apart from each other, having one polling location in the convention center was deemed a better solution than trying to manage social distancing at several smaller sites around the county.

"It's been going quite well," said election co-chair Nora Burkgren. "It's organized. It's smooth. Everybody is being very patient."

Voters coming in the door were given a pen to keep after they filled out their ballots and masks were provided to anybody that didn't have one of their own. Each station was protected by glass screens and poll workers were decked out in PPE to keep themselves and others safe.

"Even our workers are segregated, so nobody is too close," said Burkgren.

One might think that consolidating all of the polling locations into a single place would dramatically increase the foot traffic, however it seems that the state's push towards absentee ballots balanced things out.

"It's been steady all day," said co-chair Luann Huling.

Franklin County saw a 25% turnout of registered voters for this year's primary, which was a considerable increase from the previous two elections, which saw 11% and 20% turnout in 2018 and 2016 respectively.

But while overall turnout increased, the ratio of in-person voting to absentee voting effectively reversed. In total, only 4.81% of Franklin County's registered voters went out to vote in-person, a fraction of the typical in-person turnout. In the previous two elections, the ratio of in-person voters compared to absentee voters was nearly 10 to 1. This year, however, absentee voters outnumbered in-person voters more than 4 to 1.

"That's a very big amount," said Deputy Auditor Amy Holmgaard. "It's quite a switch."