Voter turnout high, lower than expected

By STEVE COLON

Enterprise Editor

Turnout from voters in Fulton County was not quite as high as expected, but voters still turned out en masse for the election on Tuesday with over 70 percent of registered voters hitting the polls.

According to Kathy Meyer, director of the Board of Elections, the voter turnout was 73 percent. She had predicted an 85 percent voter turnout. This week's turnout was slightly lower than the 78 percent during the 2004 presidential election.

Meyer shouldered much of the load after former assistant director Brett Kolb was appointed EMS director. However, she credits her helpers in making this election a smooth one.

"My part-time people are tremendous," she said. "We still had Brett available to help on Election Day. To have an extra brain and extra hand makes a difference. It was still a big effort."

As of Tuesday morning, 2,960 county residents had voted early, more than twice as many as in previous elections. A semi-steady flow of voters continued to pass through BOE headquarters, Meyer said. On that morning, 851 people had cast ballots at three touch-screen voting machines set up there since Sept. 30.

"Yesterday (Monday) was crazy," she said of traffic through the office. "Absolutely crazy."

Early voters could take advantage of those machines until Nov. 3. Absentee ballots had to be return-mailed by non-metered postage no later than Nov. 3, and received by the 10th day after the election.

So far, a total of 4,203 absentee ballots have been mailed to county voters, with a record 2,047 returned.

Poll workers also helped the speedy effort with the last of the 35 polls returning to the Board office by around 9:18 p.m. All votes were counted and unofficial results were finalized by around 10 p.m., one of the earliest counties to finalize their counts in the state.

"I was amazed," Meyer said. "We had some minor issues - paper jams and getting the machines set up - but that is why we have rovers."

Rovers travel around the county to help poll workers with just those issues.

This election paper ballots were mandated by the Ohio Secretary of State as an option to the electronic voting machines. However, Meyer said only around 50 of the 21,612 voters opted to use paper over the machines.

"There were very few," she said. "I hope that sends a message to the Secretary of State."

Counties across Ohio had to print, and pay for, paper ballots for all voters in each precinct. At the time, County Commissioners denied the Board of Elections the funding needed to print those ballots primarily as a statement that this option was unnecessary.

They later released the funds.