Tue
May 2 2006
02:47 am
who early voted?
By: rikki

Early voting is significantly off. Few are voting in this election. Four years ago over 50,000 voters cast ballots in the county primary. Less than 11,500 voted early this year. Early turnout made up half or more of total turnout in the past three ballots. Total turnout will likely be under 30,000.

There is only one demographic bucking the trend. Democrats are nearly meeting expectations where most other groups are well short. This bodes well for write-ins.

Turnout is strongest for the Collins-Dozier-Stooksbury seventh school board seat, and the county commission fourth with Moody-Smith-McMillan and ninth with Pinkston-Kiger are the two strongest commission districts relative to size.

By commission district:

  • First  572 votes
  • Second 663 votes
  • Third 790 votes
  • Fourth 1361 votes
  • Fifth 2202 votes
  • Sixth 1222 votes
  • Seventh 2271 votes
  • Eighth 1148 votes
  • Ninth 1237 votes

It's a great chance for a longshot like Steve Hall to sneak past a dozing front runner, but there are no such hints in the early voting. I'm guessing incumbents win all contests and all the desperate Dems who need only 5% will succeed. Sometime between now and August we will get at least one more curveball from the courts.

Topics:
Stacey Diamond's picture

voting

Submitted by Stacey Diamond (not verified) on Tue, 2006/05/02 - 2:19pm.

I heard some where the other day our early vote totals were up from 4 years ago. Anyway, thanks for the updates. Stacey

rikki's picture

4 years ago

Submitted by rikki on Tue, 2006/05/02 - 3:47pm.

Early vote numbers are up slightly over four years ago, but early voting has become much more popular in the meantime, with more and better locations. Four years ago there were about 10,300 early ballots and 42,700 on election day, so less than 20% voted early. I'll be very surprised if election day turnout more than doubles early turnout in this election. There are good reasons to wait until the last minute, but those reasons easily slip into "Oops, I forgot to vote."

R. Neal's picture

I also noticed that write-in

Submitted by R. Neal on Tue, 2006/05/02 - 2:50pm.

I also noticed that write-in ballots went from around 8% the first couple of days to over 15% in the final tally. That would seem to bode well for write-in candidates.

R. Neal's picture

P.S. I also wonder if more

Submitted by R. Neal on Tue, 2006/05/02 - 3:02pm.

P.S. I also wonder if more people waited until election day this time around in case there was another late breaking court decision or something, or maybe waited to have more time over the weekend to try and digest all this mess.

Oren Incandenza's picture

You nailed it.

Submitted by Oren Incandenza on Tue, 2006/05/02 - 3:12pm.

That's exactly what I did: I bypassed my usual early voting to watch and see what else happened.  I didn't want to cast an early vote only to find out at the last minute there was someone else I could/should support.  I regretted it as I stood sweating in a slow-moving line at 0800 today, but that's a price of democracy, I guess.  Fortunately, this site was there to provide even last minute insight on some of the choices.  Thanks again, R. Neal.

The most fun aspect of my polling place was completing the write-in ballot at a card table while sitting behind, effectively, a pizza delivery box stood on its side.  The whole thing had a real Banana Republic vibe.

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