Buchanan County Clerk Mary Baack-Garvey says she’s seen a surge this week in voter registration, something she credits to two controversial presidential candidates. But registrations have been increasing since last year.

“Ever since the Secretary of State’s office started online registration, we seen increase,” Baack-Garvey said, “this week we received 300 to 400 new registrations.”

“UPS is bringing big envelopes full of them every day.”

On Tuesday her staff mailed out the first batch of 862 absentee ballots to voters who requested them. She expects to see around 3,500 such requests. Those ballots have to be returned by the day before the election, or can be brought in to the Clerk’s Office on election day.

Baack-Garvey says she is expecting a lot of people to turn out in the November election.

“I’m betting we’ll see 85% turnout,” she said. “”We ordered ballots to cover 100%.”

The last day to register to vote for the November general election is October 12