MARSHALL — The number of early voters in Lyon County has continued to climb this week, the Lyon County Auditor/Treasurer’s Office said.

As of noon Friday, 4,035 people had voted, either by returning mail or absentee ballots or through direct balloting.

Roughly a week ago, the total was at 2,750, Lyon County Auditor/Treasurer Aurora Heard said.

“We have averaged about 100 absentee voters per day at the Auditor/Treasurer’s Office since Monday, October 28,” Heard said. “It is great to see these numbers and the participation increase as we get closer to Election Day.”

There are still opportunities for registered voters to return absentee ballots in person at the Lyon County Auditor/Treasurer’s Office. The office will be open for absentee voting from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. today and Sunday.

Mail and absentee ballots must be returned by 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

Lyon County isn’t alone in seeing an increase in early voter turnout as Election Day gets closer. As of Friday, 989,807 ballots for the Nov. 5 election had been accepted across Minnesota, the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office reported. That’s out of a total of over 3.68 million registered voters in the state.

“More Minnesotans voted in the past week than during the first four weeks of voting for this election,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said in a Thursday news release. “It’s clear that our state’s long-held commitment to voting and civic engagement remains. For those who have yet to cast their ballot, now is the time to make your plan to vote in-person on or before Election Day.”

The number of absentee and mail ballots accepted so far this year is well ahead of the 2016 election, when 676,722 absentee ballots were accepted. But the 2020 election, held during the COVID pandemic, had more than 1.9 million absentee and mail ballots accepted, according to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office.

In Lyon County, some of the increase in mail and absentee ballots comes from the fact that several voting precincts are using only mail ballots. Some rural townships and small cities in the county opted not to have physical polling places this year.

Of the 4,035 ballots returned in Lyon County so far, 3,057 have been absentee or mail ballots, Heard said. There have been 978 direct ballots returned.