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Early Voting Surges In Rockford

Flickr user / kristin_a (Meringue Bake Shop) "Vote!" (CC BY 2.0)

Early voting is in full swing as time winds down before the midterm election. It's been available to Rockford residents since Sep. 27th and voters have turned up in droves.

The city’s Board of Elections has counted more than 5,000 votes to date. But Executive Director Stacey Bixby says it’s difficult to compare numbers with the previous midterm election because early voting worked differently in 2014.

“The term 'early voting' was only the two weeks right before the election, and the weeks leading up to that were what was called 'absentee voting' and you had to have a reason to be able to vote absentee," she said.

Bixby she says there's currently a surge in early voting in her office this week like many across the state. This week, her main office is averaging around 400 voters a day, while the off-site early voting location at Immanuel Episcopal Church has counted more than 250 voters since it opened last Monday.