GREEN BAY, Wis. — Well over a million Wisconsinites have already returned a ballot as of Tuesday, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. 

For Karolina Beltran, a mother of five, and a newly turned U.S. citizen, being a first time voter was a long time coming. 

"Yay! I did it!" says Beltran, as she breaks into a short victory dance after dropping her mail in ballot at Green Bay City Hall. 

"He said this is the paper. 'I passed?' Yes you did. I said 'I can’t believe it' [it was] a dream come true,” says Beltran recalling the moment she received her citizenship test results over a year ago. 

Now, she sits on her sofa filling out a mail-in ballot. For her, this presidential election was a driving force to get the long, expensive process to citizenship started. 

"When I first decided to start the process, I saved $100 a week. I started studying the questions, 100 questions every day, everyday,” says Beltran. 

She was part of the 750,000  naturalized citizens in 2019, after holding her residency for 10 years. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that’s a five year high.

Beltran chose a mail in ballot, for her, it was the safest option — carefully reading instructions, her ballot was complete- sealed and ready for the drop off box.

The Coalition of Voting Organizations of Brown County, or COVO, which helps community members with the voting process, has seen plenty of new voters. 

“Over the past couple of years we’ve seen more and more first time voters, getting registered and getting excited about voting, so that’s good.  We’re seeing a lot of people just with questions about the whole process, we want to make sure everyone is getting accurate information, because there’s a lot of misinformation out there,” says Charlotte Goska, co-leader of COVO. 

National turnout is already approximately 20% higher than four years ago. Experts say this is due to more people choosing to vote early this year amid the ongoing pandemic.