Tuesday’s election was one of the smoothest ever in Marion County, until the very end where a problem with one of the computer sticks wouldn’t read into the system and had to be hand counted.
County Clerk Steve Fox says after the rest of the results were in by nine Tuesday night, the 3,888 early votes on the one troublesome computer drive didn’t allow for a final unofficial vote total until one Wednesday morning.
“We had a really good election day,” Fox said. “I think the voter turnout has been really excellent, definitely for the early voting and grace period voting. We had a really full day today at both sites that we operate. Polling places ran well, election judges did a great job. We had one drive out of one of the early voting machines that’s given us a little trouble this evening. We’re going to do some entry ourselves here tonight, so that we get the results in.”
The voter turnout in Marion County was higher than Fox had projected. Final tallies put the turnout at 68-percent, three percent more than Fox had estimated. Fox says with large early voting numbers the end of last week through Monday, 4,298 ended up voting early. So far 1,481 vote by mail or absentee votes have been received so far. That number will not be final for ten days. Fox says 410 took advantage of grace voting where you register the same day you vote, including 260 on election day on Tuesday.
Clinton County had the highest turnout in the region at 74-percent.
