The top election official in Linn County says Cedar Rapids-area flood victims apparently had few problems casting their votes today. Linn County Auditor Joel Miller estimates as many as 10,000 voters were affected by this year’s flooding.
Flood victims who have moved for good were to vote in the precinct where they’re living now. Others were given the option of voting in their old neighborhood if they intended to return. Miller says there didn’t seem to be too much confusion today.
"We’ve had a lot of Election Day registrations. I don’t know how many of those are necessarily from the floods," Miller says, "but it seems like everyone — the voters and the workers — have all been handling the issues just kind of matter-of-factly and going through the process."
Lindsey Vanecek went back to her old Cedar Rapids neighborhood to vote. "It’s still sad," Vanecek says of the flood damage that’s still evident, "but it’s getting better."
Many flood victims may have voted early, as about 26 percent of registered voters in Linn County opted to vote early. "And that did what I hoped it would which is take off the peaks at the polling places. I’m standing at a polling place right now. This one wasn’t affected by the floods, but it’s pretty slow actually and I’m kind of wondering where the five, six o’clock rush is," Miller told Radio Iowa during a telephone interview at 6:30 p.m. today.