Voting booths were at near capacity all morning in the Howard County Courthouse on Tuesday as voters flocked to the polls. Lines had formed outside of both doors prior to the opening of the polls at 6 a.m. Poll workers were friendly and moved voters along quickly, and by 8 a.m., 226 ballots had been cast in the courthouse. 

Despite a decrease of nearly 200 registered voters in the county, Howard County Clerk Shelly Howell reported that 971 absentee ballots had been cast, and more were expected with the arrival of the day’s mail. That number is higher than those cast in 2020. No Excuse voting, commonly called “early voting,” has been available for the past two years in Missouri. Howard County tallied 508 No Excuse ballots by Tuesday morning. The polls were open until 7 p.m. Results will be printed in next week’s Fayette Advertiser and will be available the moment they are released on the Advertisers’s website: www.fayettenewspapers.com.