It is not as if voters need any more reasons to stay home on Election Day.

Sleazy candidates, negative campaigning, complicated issues — millions of Americans give these excuses and many more for not voting.

But there is one reason no one can use — inability to get a ballot. Under relaxed absentee voter rules, residents of Iowa can vote without even leaving home.

For that reason, absentee voting has been increasing in recent years, said Laural Cox, Story County election deputy (see accompanying graphic).

“We’ve seen a trend over the last few years of more and more people absenteeing because they’ve made it a lot easier to vote that way,” she said.

Before the Iowa Legislature passed a new law in 1990, the Iowa Code mandated that voters give a written reason for voting absentee, Cox said. Now voters simply have to ask for a ballot.

Cox also cited political parties as catalysts in the drive to popularize absentee voting.

“The parties canvass people — they send them the actual request forms,” she said. “They did that a lot in the last presidential election. We saw a lot of absentee requests coming in that had been sent out by the parties.”

In fact, Cox said, so many non-absent people are now voting absentee that Cox’s office sometimes calls them “early voters” instead.

The County Auditor’s office has sent out 300 absentee ballots since they were made available Sept. 24, and Cox said many more would be mailed in the month before the Nov. 3 general election.

In the past, absentee ballots have been the primary option for voters who are going to be out of town.

“We have a lot of people that notoriously vote absentee, especially the snowbirds,” she said.

Thanks to a hail of voter fraud allegations, absentee balloting has been saddled with a somewhat negative image in Polk County. But Cox said Story County has not been bothered by alleged or actual violations.

“We don’t have that problem in Story County,” she said. “I wouldn’t say that we don’t worry about it, we just haven’t had to deal with that.”

Many candidates and their representatives do deliver ballot request forms to voters, and Cox is confident that the laws are being obeyed.

“We have honest people in Story County,” she said.

Story County residents can get absentee ballots by sending their name, address, signature and the election in which they are voting to: County Auditor’s Office, 900 6th St., Nevada, Iowa, 50201. Ballots also can be picked up in person, but those voters must fill out their ballots in the office.

“It’s exactly the same ballot that goes to the polls,” Cox said.

To return mailed-out absentee ballots, voters can send them to the auditor’s office through the mail or take them to the auditor’s office in person.