Officials put voter turnout at 42 percent

By RENEE JEAN\Daily Journal Assistant Managing Editor  04 August 2004

Voters continued to turn out through much of the day Tuesday, making sure their votes counted on a wide variety of issues, from the marriage amendment to local tax issues and in tight candidate elections.

Available figures and estimates put the turnout at 42 percent. Many voters said the two state amendments, both of which were defeated in St. Francois County, were a big draw to the polls.

A last-minute voter at Farmington Precinct #4 said he had specifically come out to vote on one of the amendments, and that this is his first time voting.

"The gay marriage amendment brought me out," said Denis Cook. "I never believed voting made a difference, but enough people convinced me it does."

He was not the only voter to come in right before the polls closed. Voters were steady right up until time to close the polls at 7 p.m.

Four tax issues that were on the ballot got the nod. The senior citizen service fund, tax issues for the West County and Central school districts and the stormwater tax issue for Desloge all passed. The school issues did not increase existing taxes and they passed by wide margins.

Turnout was right at 39 percent according to the figures available Tuesday night, but St. Francois County Clerk Mark Hedrick says the company entered the total registered voters incorrectly for Bismarck precinct #2. They put in 2,605 registered voters for that precinct, but the actual number is 605.

That puts the number of active registered voters at about 29,800, while the Accu Vote machines used 31,451 for the official print outs.

The tally of active voters does not affect the outcome of the elections. It only affects the turnout percentages.

Hedrick explained that the county actually has about 39,000 registered voters, but a number of them have been inactive for several years. Inactive voters cannot be removed until at least two presidential election cycles have passed.

Using the 29,800 figure bumps the turnout to 41.7 percent, which is slightly higher than that predicted state-wide by Secretary of State Matt Blunt.

Hedrick said the high turnout in the primary points to an even bigger turnout for the November General Election.

"I hope it is 70 percent or more," Hedrick said. "I'd like to see as large a turnout as possible."

Everything went quickly and smoothly Tuesday night even though the voting machines all had to be driven to the courthouse to download the results. Results were in by about 9 p.m.

Normally the results would be downloaded by phone, which is much faster, but Hedrick said apparently the necessary phone numbers were omitted from the machine's program cards.

Hedrick said he would be bringing that issue and the incorrect figure for Bismarck's registered voters up with the company that provides the machines.

The phone numbers are not something that is tested in the required voting test, where sample ballots are run through each machine to ensure they is counting properly. All the machines did pass the required tests prior to the election, according to the employees and the observers.

A handful of citizens were at the St. Francois County Courthouse Tuesday night to watch the returns come in. The public is allowed to witness the returns as they come in.

Several people present said they were surprised by the strong showing of Claire McCaskill, running against incumbent Bob Holden for governor.

St. Francois County voters gave McCaskill the nod by 1,235 votes. McCaskill raked in 4,313 votes in St. Francois County, which was 57 percent of the ballots cast.

Beverly Burgess said she was surprised that all four tax issues passed.

Burgess was running for Democratic committeewoman of Randolph Township, and was the winner of that race by 56 percent. Burgess took 754 votes, while her opponent Ella Mae Serini got 570 votes.

There was a race for the Republican committeewoman of Randolph Township between Darlene Roper and Cheryl Nelson. Nelson won 52 percent of the votes cast, garnering 244 votes, while Roper took in 47 percent of the votes cast, or 221.

For the Republican committeeman for Perry Township, the race was between Robert "Bob" Schwartz, who took in 67 percent of the ballots cast, for a total of 393 votes, and Ed Plunkett, who won 191 votes.