Absentee and early voting – which is becoming increasingly popular – is now available for the Dec. 6 Ames City Council runoff election.

Request forms for absentee ballots, available at www.storycounty.com, can be sent to the Story County Auditor until Friday. Absentee ballots must be postmarked Dec. 5 or earlier to be counted in the Dec. 6 runoff between 3rd Ward candidates Ryan Doll, senior in political science, and incumbent Daryle Vegge.

Story County Auditor Mary Mosiman said early voting is also available over the counter at the auditor’s office before 5 p.m. Monday.

Mosiman said all mailed absentee ballots will be counted as long as they arrive before Dec. 13 – the day the voting results are made official – with the appropriate postmark.

Absentee ballots can also be hand-delivered to the auditor’s office before polls close at 8 p.m. Dec. 6, according to a press release from the Story County Auditor’s office .

So far, nearly 200 absentee ballots have been requested, Mosiman said.

“I would estimate that we’ll have approximately 300 absentee ballots requested,” Mosiman said. “There’s always a certain number that are simply not returned; it averages around 10 percent.”

She said approximately a dozen ballots have been returned so far, but they are not processed until election day.

Mosiman said early voting is available in every Story County election, and has been a growing trend since 1996.

“There’s a broad demographic range of absentee voters,” Mosiman said.

For example, voter registration efforts, including those targeted at ISU students, often allow new voters to sign up as absentee voters when registering.

Mara Spooner, president of campus activist group ActivUs and senior in anthropology, said members of her group carry absentee forms when registering new voters. The group registered approximately 550 students for the Nov. 8 city election, she said.

Mosiman said research on specific demographics has not been conducted, but most absentee and early voters request ballots year after year.

“They just enjoy the convenience of the ballot coming to their home . versus election day time constraints,” she said.