By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — With a week to go before Election Day, Kosciusko County is seeing robust early voting.
As of Saturday, Kosciusko County Clerk Ann Torpy said 7,795 people had cast ballots as of Saturday, which marked the first day of expanded voting.
“In 2020, we had 11,000 voters at the end so this is going to be a busy week for us,” Torpy said.
“Daily turnout is exceeding what we normally have,” she added.
“We had a lot of voters register to vote,” Torpy said.
The early voting center in Warsaw has seen a constant stream of voters arriving at the Justice Building.
An increase of some 300 voters comes despite a state-required purge and some residents registering elsewhere after moving out of the county.
Shari Benyouski, who helped launch a new League of Women Voters chapter in Kosicukso County earlier this year and worked with others over the last few months helping people register thinks overall registration could be record-setting.
“My feeling is there is much more motivation to vote,” Benyouski said.
That desire to participate, she said, is coming despite a local ballot that is lacking in any contested races.
Most of the interest seems to be focused on one race — the U.S. Presidential contest.
She said that most of the people she talked with while working through the registration process were given a chance to look at the local ballot.
“Most of them would say, ‘No, that’s not where I’m focused,’ ” she said.
Early voting continues this week at the Justice Building in Warsaw from 8 a.m. to 4:30 and expanded voting is available Saturday at the Justice Building and the North Webster Community Center.
Saturday’s voting hours will be from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
On a related note, Torpy said the printing malfunction that involved a mistake in paperwork that accompanied absentee ballots turned out to be minor. The local election board took steps to rectify the situation after realizing three absentee voters noticed a problem earlier this month.
Torpy said Monday they have not learned of any additional misprints, which is good news amid a hectic, high-stakes election season.
“Yes, yes — a sense of relief,” Torpy said.
