Only 26.89% of Seward County’s 11,589 registered voters turned out for the May 12 primary.
The highest turnout percentagewise came from the local Democratic voters, who had a 33.2% turnout of their 1,931 registered voters with 641 ballots cast, followed by Republicans’ 30.38% turnout with 2,198 ballots cast from its 7,235 registered voters, the largest voting bloc in the county.
Nonpartisan voters, who number 2,235 in Seward County, had an 11.28% turnout with 252 ballots cast. The Libertarian voters had a 14.19% turnout with 21 ballots cast from the 148 people registered as Libertarian and 10% of the Legal Marijuana NOW voters showed up with four ballots cast from their 40 registered voters.
Seward County Election Commissioner and County Clerk Brandy Johnson said the 3,117 voters who cast ballots at the polls, in the clerk’s office or by mail seemed to vote in a steady stream this voting day.
“I am pleased with the turn out,” she said. “I would have liked a little bit higher.”
With primaries, however, some registered voters have little to vote on.
Nebraska law allows each party to determine how much, if any, of their primary races can be open to nonpartisan voters.
At the state level, the Nebraska Secretary of State’s office reported 339,302 ballots being cast from the 1.25 million registered voters in the state. That is 26.99%, just slightly above Seward County’s turnout.
Johnson said her office received a few calls during the day about the sheriff’s race not being on the ballot. While three candidates originally filed for the sheriff’s job, two were removed from the ballot after they missed the deadline for filing financial documents, leaving a single candidate, Tim Huntingon, on the ballot and no need to be on the primary ballot.
Troy Schaefer and Trey Wayne have launch write-in campaigns for the November election.
Johnson said one person had to be asked a couple of times to leave the Seward County Ag Pavilion parking area because election laws require petition circulators to be more than 200 feet from a polling place. That eliminates the area around the ag pavilion and around the courthouse because it is also an official polling place.
She said 327 voters either mailed their ballot in or came to the clerk’s office to vote early.
She said 15 voters had to submit provisional ballots and she believes at least four of those will not count due to errors on the information required on the outside of those sealed envelopes. Based on the numbers, she does not anticipate those four or any others rejected would make a difference in any races at this time.
Voters filing provisional ballots have information that allows them to check on the status of their individual ballot.
One person filed a provisional ballot because they did not have appropriate identification and now has seven days to bring identification to the county clerk’s office for their ballot to be counted.
That deadline shifts the schedule for when the canvassing committee can do its work to finalize election counts, likely to May 20, Johnson said. But the delay is not inconvenient. She said cleaning up polling sites and storing equipment takes some time after the election.
Johnson, who was appointed election commissioner and county clerk after longtime election commissioner and clerk Sherry Schweitzer retired, was pleased with the day
“It was the best possible first election I could have asked for,” she said.
