MOUNT VERNON — Tuesday’s primary election had a few bumps, but overall, things ran smoothly.
“We had some issues on some of the databases within the poll books, but we were able to figure out a remedy, and things ran smoothly,” explained James Blazer, director of the Knox County Board of Elections.
Voter turnout was 30.54 percent, lower than elections officials expected. But Blazer pointed out that numbers statewide were also low.
Early voting ran just shy of 4,000 ballots.
“That’s about half of what it was in the fall election,” Blazer said. “The top of the ticket for both Republicans and Democrats had already been decided, and there was not a drive for people to turn out.”
Blazer said that on the Republican side, the commissioner and sheriff races were highly contended.
“But that appears not to have been a driver to push turnout to a higher level,” he said.
The commissioner races drew 10,425 and 10,930 ballots. In the sheriff’s contest, 10,924 voters cast ballots.
The ballots cast totaled 13,093; 1,695 were on the Democratic side, and 11,365 were on the Republican side. Thirty-three were nonpartisan.
Voter turnout for the Republican party was 103.6 percent. That means that some Democrats or Independents cast a Republican ballot.
Campaign material
Blazer said citizens requested the BOE to investigate several locations where they alleged campaign signs were too close to the voting location.
Signs have to be at least 100 feet from the door of the polling location.
There were also a few instances where volunteers allegedly distributed campaign material within the 100-foot distance.
“The polling managers did measure, and in all instances, there was no violation,” Blazer said.
Another incident involved a citizen reporting to poll workers that a campaign sign was on public property at Wiggin Street Elementary School. Blazer said that was not within the BOE’s jurisdiction.
Certifying primary election results
Election staff members were busy today “curing” the provisional ballots.
Voters cast a provisional ballot if the information is discrepant, such as an expired driver’s license or the first name on the poll book not matching the name on the photo ID.
Curing is the process of resolving or cleaning up those discrepancies.
“We will clean up all of that by Saturday at 5 p.m. There are about 108 of those ballots,” Blazer said.
“Those will be presented to the board. If the board approves that we’ve cured everything, the board will release them to be part of the total votes. That gets us to the certification part.”
The BOE must certify the results by April 9.
