Few early voters cast ballots, but there is still time
Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/61614/
BENTONVILLE — The Benton County Clerk’s Office planned for many early voters to cast ballots in advance of the partisan primaries and nonpartisan judicial election, all to be held on the same day: May 20.
But fewer voters than expected have come out to vote early, at least through Tuesday afternoon, said Mary Lou Slinkard, longtime Benton County clerk.
“ My ! If this keeps up, we’re going to have a very low voter turnout on May 20, ” she said.
Under a state law, eligible voters can vote early at any of the three offices the county clerk maintains in Bentonville, Rogers and Siloam Springs. Early voting began Monday and will continue through election eve, May 19.
Perhaps in part because Arkansans cast votes for their party’s presidential nominees earlier this year, in February, turnout for early voting, so far, has been light, Slinkard said.
“ Our numbers at this point do not even show half of what we did on the first day in previous elections. … We are kind of light on the first day, and I don’t know what to attribute that to. I mean, I expected ay least 200 or 300. And actually we did 155 yesterday and 126 today on the Republican side, and on the Democrat side we did 31 yesterday and 15 today. … So in the Bentonville office we had a total, yesterday and today, as of this moment, of 328 folks who voted. In my opinion, that’s very low, ” Slinkard said. “ We don’t have a line. People walk right up to the counter. We’ve got six people … ready to handle voters, and there’s nobody here. ”
“ In the Rogers office, we’ve done 133 Republicans and a total of 39 Democrat ballots, and 2 nonpartisan.... And then in the Siloam Springs office,... the breakdown is 30 Republican ballots, 2 Democrat ballots and 0 nonpartisan. Our grand total of all is 534 (ballots ), for two days in all three offices, ” Slinkard said.
Still, that doesn’t mean the numbers of people voting early won’t pick up in the remaining days before May 20. And the County Clerk’s Office will be ready to accommodate those voters if that happens, she said. “ It’s kind of like doing Christmas shopping. People kind of tend to wait until Christmas Eve. … (But ) we’re prepared, and we’ve got it organized here to handle the voters, so we’d encourage people to give (early voting ) a shot, ” Slinkard said.