It’s on to Super Tuesday-Turnout brisk as early voting ends
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‘The thing is, other counties, in addition to the presidential preference primaries, have other contested races or ballot questions which got the interest of the voters,’ said election administrator Donna Yates, who said the early voting option opened slowly before picking up steam this week. ‘Here, we had just one local race, and it was uncontested during the primary.’
As of mid-week in Tennessee, nearly a quarter-million voters had gone to the polls to cast early ballots, a number which is expected to nearly triple the turnouts of 2000 and 2004 when the presidential primaries drew a little over 100,000 early voters both years. The fact there have been key candidates such as Fred Thompson and Rudy Guiliani dropping out on the Republican side, and John Edwards on the Democratic side, have spurred a late surge in early voters now that the political dust has settled.
Yates said she has seen a similar trend here but not on the scale the rest of the state has seen. This week has proved to be the biggest draw at the polls with 264 voting Monday, 252 on Tuesday, and 310 on Wednesday.
‘We usually see a larger number coming to vote the last few days,’ Yates said, noting those who did not early vote can take to the polls around the county Tuesday when Tennessee joins 23 other states in Super Tuesday, a day which will determine 40 percent of the overall convention delegates.
While numbers were not spectacular when compared to some across the state, local voting in the 2008 preference primary was higher than in 2004 when 1,812 people voted early in a year which saw George W. Bush get the Republican nomination and John Kerry nip John Edwards here on his way to the Democratic nomination.
Early voting this week:
Monday ‘ 264
Tuesday ‘ 252
Wednesday ‘ 310
Thursday ‘ 475