Early voting is going at a steady pace comparable to the last nonpresidential election year in 2018, election officials in Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley said Friday.
There were 21,057 early votes cast in Benton County through Friday, according to the County Clerk's Office. There are 181,415 registered voters in the county.
The best turnout was Wednesday when 4,700 votes were cast.
In early voting in 2018, the five-day total was 19,754; in 2020, a presidential election year, it was a combined 45,566 through five days, according to the County Clerk's Office.
Benton County Clerk Betsy Harrell told the Benton County Quorum Court on Thursday night there had been no major problems with voting this cycle.
Early voting continues through Nov. 7. Election Day is Nov. 8.
NewLife Christian Church at 103 Riordan Road in Bella Vista -- the only early voting location in that city -- will not be open for early voting Monday because of a previously scheduled event, said Kim Dennison, county election coordinator.
Dennison also said things have run smoothly as the first week of early voting winds down. The rain may have kept some people away from the polls earlier in the week, but things had picked up by Wednesday. Things will get much busier next week, she said.
The county has 13 early voting locations including the Benton County Election Commission Office on West Walnut Street in the Rogers Annex next to Frisco Station Mall. "The space is to easy to get to, and there is plenty of machines and parking," Dennison said.
Early voting in Washington County also proceeds with no snags, said election coordinator Jennifer Price.
"It is actually going very smoothly," she said before early voting sites closed Friday evening. "We are right at a 10% voter turnout, and in 2018 at this point we were at an 11% voter turnout, but we have one more hour of voting still."
The tally of early votes as of Friday was 14,878 in Washington County, or about 10.4%. There are 142,730 registered voters in Washington County, Price said. Friday proved to be the county's best turnout day so far, figures show, with 3,380 votes cast. This exceeds the 3,340 cast on Wednesday, figures show.
Crawford County has 35,775 registered voters, according to a spokeswoman for the County Clerk's Office. As of Friday evening, the county had 3,696 votes cast, about 10.3%
Sebastian County figures show 7,356 early votes as of Friday, 10.6% of the total number of registered voters so far. Sebastian County has 69,460 registered voters, according to secretary of state records.
Voters cast their ballots Friday while voting early at the Washington County Courthouse in Fayetteville. Visit nwaonline.com/221029Daily/ for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/J.T. Wampler)