Voter turnout near 60 percent
By MICHAEL W. HOSKINS
Daily Journal staff writer
Nov. 9, 2004

Voters in many parts of Johnson County rallied in record numbers to vote in last week?s elections.

White River Township gets a gold star for the most voters casting ballots in Johnson County last week, but Clark Township had the highest percentage of voters.

Two-thirds of the 28,007 registered White River Township residents cast ballots, meaning more than 18,500 residents voted in the election.

But that wasn?t the highest percentage turnout in Johnson County.

For example, the county?s growing east side in Clark Township had the highest turnout with 68.2 percent, or 950 of the 1,393 registered voters, casting ballots.

Most townships had turnouts higher than 60 percent, although Franklin and Pleasant townships were both about 55 percent.

Less than half the registered voters in Blue River Township cast ballots.

Johnson County turnout hit 59.85 percent, just shy of the 60 percent county clerk Jill Jackson had predicted before the election.

A total 51,558 of the 86,144 registered voters cast ballots in the election, according to county figures tallied late last week. The official figures were delayed and recalculated after election company Election Systems & Software made an error in figuring the number.

Company officials programmed the machines with a number from mid-September, when about 5,000 fewer voters were registered for the Nov. 2 election.

The error didn?t affect results or any races but did the turnout rate to lower than what was first thought. The nearly 60 percent still beats the turnout in 2000, when only about 56 percent of county residents voted.

This year, the turnout topped recent years despite constant rainfall and dark clouds that hovered over the county and much of central Indiana.

Greenwood Christian Church on Averitt Road had one of the best and one of the worst voter turnouts at the same time.

Three-fourths of the registered voters in Pleasant Township?s Precinct 22 cast ballots, while little more than a third of those registered voted in Precinct 37.

Both precincts vote at the church, separated by a sliding divider wall.

Between the two, 1,528 people are registered to vote at the church, which is at the southern end of Greenwood near the New Whiteland border.

Precinct 28 at Center Grove Elementary School posted the best turnout in the Nov. 2 election, with nearly 75 percent of voters casting ballots.

Election administrators will be studying the turnouts and voting registration as they review the election and possibly consider revamping precincts to better accommodate voters.

Jackson is not yet sure what, if any, changes will be made.

The county redrew precinct maps following the 2000 Census because of new population estimates, and the number of polling sites increased from 98 to 104.