Marengo County runoff turnout among highest in state

Published 10:15 am Thursday, July 17, 2014

Marengo County’s voter turnout for Tuesday’s primary runoff election was one of the highest in the state at 43 percent.

Of the county’s 16,116 registered voters, 6,890 visited the polls Tuesday.

Marengo County Probate Judge Laurie Hall said she was pleased with the entire election process.

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“Everything went very smoothly in both the primary and in the runoff,” she said. “I expected us to have more issues with the new voter ID law, and people not wanting to comply, but we didn’t have any issues in either election.”

She said she also didn’t receive any complaints from voters about the new voting machines during this cycle of elections.

“Everyone seemed to like the new machines,” she said. “No one submitted a complaint form for either election, and the forms were available at each voting location. One thing we have going for us here is that we very rarely have a wait for people to vote. It helps people save time during their day.”

She added that the only complaint she heard was that voters didn’t like having to choose which party ticket they wanted to vote on.

“The primaries are held by the parties, so we don’t have any control of that,” she said. “The primaries are meant for people to choose the candidate they want to represent their party in the general election in November.”

Hall said she appreciates the hard work of the poll workers throughout the election process.

“I appreciate all the time and hard work the poll workers put in to making this election run as smoothly as it did,” she added.

At the state level, voter turnout was higher than predicted, but still much lower than Marengo County’s.

Secretary of State Jim Bennett said approximately 8 percent of Alabama’s 2.9 million voters showed up to the polls to decide on races like Secretary of State and a place on the Public Service Commission.

“While we would have preferred turnout to be higher, it was about as predicted. We look forward to a higher voter turnout in November,” Bennett said.

There were no issues reported with photo voter ID for this election. Bennett said there were a few issues at the polls that were handled by local officials and the office is addressing those complaints.

The general election will be held Nov. 4.