Record Setting Early Voting Totals Seen in Brown County

Early voting wrapped up Friday for the 2012 general election with a record turnout in Brown County.

A total of 8,513 ballots were cast during the two weeks of early voting beating the previous record set in 2008, according to the Brown County Elections Office.  Total early voting in the 2008 election was 8,183 according to officials.

Tuesday, October 23rd, the second day of early voting, saw a new early voting daily record of 967.  Crowds at the polls continued to hold steady the first week with over 750 voting daily.   Assistant Elections Administrator Larry Franks stated that elections officials are very pleased with early voting turnout and hope that Election Day will be just as busy.  That total was also broken on this last day of voting with 1,028 ballots cast.

“It was an awesome turnout, we are really excited about it,” said Franks.  “We hope Election Day will have as large of a turnout. We have never gone over 1,000 in a day nor have we gone over 8,500 in Early Voting.  38% turned out for Early Voting.”

Franks stated that Elections Administrator Suzy Young had to order additional ballots during early voting for precincts 101, 105, and 318 and that 214 had a very good turnout as well.

Voters steadily streamed into the Adams Street Community Center throughout early voting and kept election workers constantly working said Franks.

“Our workers are doing well, it’s been steady, but not overwhelming,” said Franks.   “We want to thank all of the Brown County voters who made the effort to turn out for early voting.  We can’t say that enough.”

A goal for the general election was stated by Franks in an email regarding voting totals.

“Our Goal for this election is 75%.  Brown County’s best turnout was in 1992 when 72% of the County turned out to vote,” stated Franks.

Franks stated that early voting across the board was successful, even in the BISD election of Place 4 trustee.  Elections officials worked hard to manually verify voters against the new maps rather than relying on a list which was inaccurate during the first two days of early voting in the trustee race.  He stated that only 6 people were found to have voted that shouldn’t have.  Elections Administrator Suzy Young put out a public service announcement on Wednesday encouraging eligible voters that may not have voted in the BISD election (due to the confusion of the redistricting) to come back and vote or call to clarify if they were eligible to vote in Place 4.  Franks stated that dozens of calls came in and many had returned to cast their ballots.

“We had several dozen calls of people checking on Place 4 redistricting,” said Franks.  “I wish we would have had a thousand.”

Franks explained that the BISD election received between 300-400 votes by 6:30pm Friday (the last day of early voting) and that represented approximately 25% of the eligible voters, a very good early voting turnout for a school board election.

Elections officials remind the public that the polls will be open from 7:00am until 7:00pm at 16 locations throughout the county.  Polling locations are as follows: