Smooth Primary draws high turnout

By Wade Coggeshall

DANVILLE May 07, 2008 01:07 am

— Hendricks County’s Voter Registration Office reported no problems during Tuesday’s Primary Election, despite a higher-than-normal voter turnout.
Almost 40 percent of registered voters in the county cast ballots. Historically only about 12-15 percent of voters participate in the primary. No doubt this one generated more buzz thanks to the ongoing battle for the Democratic presidential nomination between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It was evident in the number of absentee ballots cast. In the last presidential primary in 2004, Hendricks County had 954. This one had 2,305. In-office voting machines for absentee ballots were used for the first time in a primary this year, generating 1,200 ballots.
“We’ve all put a lot of hours in, but here’s our payoff,” said Laura Herzog, the county’s election supervisor. “I’m happy to report there’s been no problems.”
Center Township Precinct 8 was the first to report, about 20 minutes after the polls closed. Brown Township Precinct 5 was the last at about 7:05 p.m. Final tallies were in at about a quarter after 11 Tuesday, though 191 votes from Lincoln Township Precinct 9 had to be entered manually.
This was the first countywide election using one voting system, making for quicker results.
“When we had two systems we had to manually enter vote totals,” Herzog said. “It took a really long time. Being on one system, coupled with absentee ballots on voting machines, has really streamlined it.”
Voter Registration did report a high volume of phone calls, particularly during the Primary.
“Most were from people asking where do I vote?” said David Sutherland, a Democratic appointee to the county’s Election Board. “Others were not on the state’s voting list.”
Most who were at the Government Center waiting on results left before the finals numbers were done. Herzog made no apologies.
“This election is not just from 6 to 10 p.m. Election Night,” she said. “It starts in January with card filing, campaign finance, ballot design and machine programming, voter registration, absentee voting, training of poll workers, and more. It takes five months to prepare. I don’t want to be sloppy the last two hours and not get accurate results of something we’ve worked five months on.”

wade.coggeshall@flyergroup.com