EFFINGHAM — With 29-percent of registered voters turning out to vote in Tuesday’s election, County Clerk Kerry Hirtzel said that Effingham County did better than some past years. According to him, the County usually pulls around 25-percent, so Tuesday’s turnout “wasn’t bad.”
While November’s General Election had a higher voter turnout, the Consolidated Election had many more ballot styles. “In a general election, because we have 37 precincts, commonly we look at probably 60 or 70 ballot styles,” Hirtzel said. “In this election we had 101 and that causes different problems, or different things that we have to do, because we have to keep track of each one.”
Despite that challenge, Hirtzel said that things went smoothly overall. There was one snag when a data card from one of the precincts wasn’t turned in, which delayed final “unofficial” results by about an hour.
Hirtzel discusses the differences between the two elections.