Missouri, Illinois residents take advantage of final day of early voting

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Many areas in the St. Louis metro area are seeing high turnout and long lines as people stand in the rain to cast their early ballots before Election Day.

St. Louis County election officials have confirmed nearly 40% of voters have already cast a ballot.

Since early voting began on Oct. 22, a total of 200,274 ballots have been cast, including 32,608 absentee mail-in ballots received by the St. Louis County Board of Elections.

With one day remaining until Election Day, officials said it's a good thing they have been slammed with those early voters.

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Rick Stream, the Republican St. Louis County Director of Elections, said the county is prepared for Election Day.

"Today is the last day of early voting and we expect another 20,000 people to vote at our 14 satellite locations, which means that for the two-week period, we'll have 220,000 people vote early," Stream said. "So, that's roughly a third of our active registered voters."

Over in north St Louis, hundreds stood in line at the Whol Recreation Center, including James Clark with the Urban League of Metropolitan St Louis

"This is the most important election of our lifetime," Clark said. "And I encourage everyone to vote and then begin to hold our elected officials accountable. We have some very challenging times ahead of us, but it starts with the vote."

St. Charles County officials said that in 2020, they saw close to 68,000 early voters with absentee ballots. Before the end of Monday, they expect to hit 72,000 early voters.

In St Louis City, close to 51,00 people have voted early.

"I decided to vote early because, first of all, to avoid the lines, but make sure you do get an opportunity to vote. This is one of the most historic, important votes of our lifetimes," Ken Malone said.

Polls open at 6 a.m. Tuesday and close at 7 p.m.