By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

Early, in-person voting at county auditors’ offices starts this Wednesday and county auditors will also start mailing absentee ballots to voters who requested the mail-in option.

Winnebago County Auditor Karla Weiss, the president of the Iowa State Association of County Auditors, said people need to make sure to sign the outside of their absentee ballots. “If you don’t do that, it won’t count, so just make sure that you take your time, fill everything out, make sure that you are signing every place that needs signed,” she said. “That’s probably one of the most important things.” Absentee ballots must be county auditors’ offices by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Candidates, their campaigns and the two major political parties are amping up their get-out-the-vote efforts. Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said there is a coordinated effort among the Democratic campaigns for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House that emphasizes direct, in-person contact with voters. “Perhaps in more than a decade has it been that we’ve had this kind of ground operation, so really pleased that we’ve got more than 60 organizers on the ground, that we have more than 30 campaign offices, some of them open in place that…maybe have never had a campaign office,” Hart said during an interview on “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS.

Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann said Republican U.S. Senate Joni Ernst, who is not seeking re-election, has made a significant donation from her campaign funds to support early voting efforts. “The Republican Party of Iowa will have the largest, most aggressive get-out-the-vote effort in the history of the Republican Party of Iowa and a large part of that is absentee voting if that’s where Republicans choose to vote,” Kaufmann said recently on “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS. “We want to bank the vote.”

Democrats had long held an edge in early voting in Iowa, but about 10,000 more Republicans than Democrats cast absentee ballots in 2024.