Low turnouts in early primary voting

Published 2:59 pm Tuesday, May 3, 2022

By Ivan Sanders

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Poll workers were waiting to assist voters walking into local precincts to cast their ballots during Tuesday’s primary but the early turnout was slow.
As of 10 a.m. Tuesday, the Siam precinct had only 30 voters; at Hunter Elementary, 100 votes had been cast by 10:45 a.m.
“We normally vote close to half of our registered voters,” said voting officer Teresa Treadway, who has been working polls for over 35 years. “There were 341 who voted early from this precinct and there are a total of 2,278 registered voters. We were at one time the second-largest precinct in the county.”
Treadway said one reason that the turnout could be low is there are no Democrats running in this primary. She said the August 4 General Election would see more voters come to the polls.
The polls in the city have mirrored those in the county, as the T.A. Dugger precinct reported only 55 voters around noon.
Voting officer Dicky Lou Cantey said they had been slow at T.A. Dugger with a couple of spurts.
“We have 2,124 registered voters in the T.A. Dugger precinct,” said Cantey, who was working her first poll in over 27 years after retiring from a law firm. “We have two 17-year-old ladies helping us work. I feel like this is my patriotic duty to work.”
The Star will be posting live updates as they come into the Election Commission office. Polls close at 8 p.m.

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