Fargo City Auditor: Turnout is steady through early morning on special Election Day

(Fargo, ND) – Voters in the City of Fargo are taking to the polls today to vote on a potential increase in city sales tax and lodging tax, to be used to help renovate the FargoDome and add a convention center. Should the measure pass, the City’s Home Rule Charter would be amended to establish a three percent lodging tax on hotel and motel rooms and a one-quarter percent (1/4 %) sales, gross receipts and use tax.

Fargo City Auditor Steve Sprague said turnout “is steady.”

“At each of the locations that I’ve been to, it’s a steady flow of people,” he said. “It’s good to see that there aren’t any big lines queuing up.”

The City is working with paper poll books broken down into 16 sections of the alphabet – in an attempt to alleviate long lines at polling places.

Sprague said the City has received approximately 650 absentee ballots, which he calls a “pretty good indicator” of the total population that will likely come out to vote.

“The absentee rate will be somewhere between 10 and 20 percent (of the total vote),” he said. “I think, by the end of the night, we will be very pleased with the turnout.”

Polls open until 7 p.m. at three polling places – Ramada Inn at 3333 13th Avenue South, FARGODOME at 1800 North University Drive and the Civic Memorial Auditorium at 207 4th Street North.