ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. — St. Charles County had a 76% turnout and a record number of people—228,700—cast their ballots during the absentee voting period through Election Day.
This number breaks the earlier record of 223,533 voters in November 2020.
Here are some numbers provided by a St. Charles County spokesperson:
- There are currently 301,218 registered voters in St. Charles County.
- Of those, 76,338 voted before Election Day.
- 152,362 voted on Election Day.
For the first time, the county registered more than 300,000 people to vote.
Director of Elections Kurt Bahr with the St. Charles County Election Authority points to the county's ever-growing population, with the U.S. Census Bureau estimating about 417,000 total residents.
With an uptick of voters, planning has already started for the next election.
5 On Your Side spoke to Bahr on Thursday at its Election Authority, where bipartisan teams were hand counting ballots.
Days after the election, there were thousands of ballots, nine tables each with two election judges, and one goal.
"Does the hand count and the election night total match up?" Bahr said.
By the end of the day on Thursday, St. Charles County reported the hand count perfectly matched the machine count.
With more voters, it had to bump up the amount of election judges to do the audit. It was a reminder for Bahr to start strategizing.
"I think that the lines that we saw in the two weeks of no-excuse absentee voting is probably the best indicator to say, this is what is the new norm in St. Charles County," Bahr shared.
A new norm to take in and look ahead.
Bahr explained next year's county budget includes a new position.
"It's called an election assistant and the point of this particular person, who will be new, is to help us manage and staff and train any satellite voting that we use, whether they are the current ones that we have or new ones that we create," Bahr added.
From there, the idea is to improve no-excuse voting and to possibly increase the number of polling places.
"That's what we're working on, getting ready for, for the next big election and that's what we're going to talk to the county council about and say, 'Hey, we need additional supervisors, additional election judges' and to do that well is to have a trained staff, leadership and support," Bahr shared.
St. Charles County's Election Authority also saw a traffic backlog during early voting.
Bahr said he's already looking at the flow of its parking lot and accessibility to keep voters safe.