The 2020 Primary election is now come and gone, and some candidates are celebrating victories while some are dealing with defeat, and others are preparing for runoff elections.
While Super Tuesday is now in the past, there is one glaring issue that stands out for the four counties (Jefferson, Cleveland, Grant, and Lincoln) that Deltaplex News covered over the past few weeks, and that is the amount of registered voters who did not show up to the polls.
In all four counties less than 40% of all registered voters showed up to cast their ballots. Those numbers are lower compared to the two previous elections.
Jefferson County has 43,394 registered voters, but only 13,527 showed up to the ballot boxes. That is just 31.17% of registered voters. In Cleveland County there are 4,413 registered voters, and only 1,408 showed up to vote. That is just 31,91% of all registered voters. In Grant County just 4,112 ballots were cast by 11,628 registered voters, which is 35.36% of all registered voters. In Lincoln County 1,795 voters cast their ballots out of 6,250 registered voters. That is just 28.72% of registered voters.
While these numbers are low, they all exceed the overall turnout across the State of Arkansas where only 488,954 voters out of 1,740,172 registered voters cast their ballots. That is just 28.1% of all registered voters in the state.
Bradley County had the highest turnout in the state Tuesday night with 2,161 voters out of 5,105 registered voters (42.33%) showing up to vote, while Newton County had the worst turnout with 1,122 ballots being cast by 6,499 registered voters (17.26%).
In the 2018 General Election, 20,013 ballots were cast in Jefferson County by 43,090 registered voters (46.44%), while 2,599 ballots were cast by 4,922 registered voters (52.80%) in Cleveland County, 5,566 ballots were cast by 11,474 registered voters (48.51%) in Grant County, and 3,053 ballots were cast by 6,169 registered voters (49.49%) in Lincoln County.
In the 2016 Primary Election 17,152 ballots were cast out of 41,276 registered voters (41.55%) in Jefferson County, 2,067 ballots were cast out of 4,741 registered voters (43.60%) in Cleveland County, 4,310 ballots were cast out of 10,504 registered voters (41.03%) in Grant County, and 2,161 ballots were cast our of 5,791 registered voters (37.32%) in Lincoln County.
As noted, this year’s numbers are lower than the previous two election numbers.
At the end of the day the local elections may matter more to us than the national elections do. More decisions are made by local politicians that will directly affect each of us more so than the national level decisions.
It is an honor to be able to vote and to make our voices heard, especially considering we have faced times in this country when certain people were not afforded the opportunity to vote. It has taken a lot of fighting and a lot of legislation over the history of the United States to give all American’s the right to vote.
There is a runoff election on March 31 and the General election is in November. If you are a registered voter take advantage of your right to vote in these upcoming elections, and make your voice heard.
