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Ballots are already coming back

CENTER — 5,382 out and nearly 800 back in.

The Knox County Clerk’s office sent out 5,382 ballots last week for this year’s General Election. By Monday at 5 p.m. Knox County Clerk Joann Fischer said nearly 800 ballots or 15 percent had already been returned.

“The response has been good.,” Fischer said. “We had a record number vote in the Primary Election and I foresee the General Election turn out to exceed the previous years’ numbers.”

Fischer said the election appears to be enticing more young people to get involved.

“I have noticed that there are more young people participating in the By-Mail process and that is very important,” she said.

She said some people have been watching national news reports expressing concerns about the safety of an all-mail election.

“There have been some who were concerned with the mail but we have been working directly with the postal department to do what we can to assure timely delivery,” Fischer said. Most of the ballots returned have been through the mail so far.”

Fischer said several counties have placed drop boxes in their communities. She considered doing that here, too, but decided to only do it on a small scale.

“We were going to try drop boxes in the banks in our communities but with the increase of COVID-19 cases in Knox County, many of the area banks have or are going to close their lobbies to the public or they said they didn’t want to participate because there could be too much direct public contact with bank staff. With that, we had three banks that we have drop boxes in during their regular banking hours — the Bank of Hartington bank branches in Niobrara and Bloomfield along with the Commercial State Bank.” There is also a drop box in the east foyer of the Courthouse and the foyer is open 24/7 under camera surveillance, she said.

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