Low voter turnout for March primary

By Randa Wag­ner
Four term Mor­row County Com­mis­sioner Olen Jack­son lost his bid for the Repub­li­can spot in the 2012 gen­eral elec­tion, tak­ing 1180 votes to Richard Miller’s 2274. All three levies failed, though a Local Option/Patriot Syn­ergy, LLC for Card­ing­ton Vil­lage West passed with 60% of the votes.
Com­pet­ing for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion for Mor­row County Trea­surer, Tim Garry upset Den­nis Leader’s bid in a 2104/1721 win.
Less than 25 per­cent of reg­is­tered vot­ers in the county turned up at the polls. Board of Elec­tions Direc­tor Mar­i­lyn Smith said it’s the low­est voter turnout in Mor­row County she can recall since she began in 1996.
“I was shocked,” she said. “When we called into the polling places that night, they would tell us it was very slow.”
Smith noted voter turnout usu­ally aver­ages about 40 per­cent.
“What I think hap­pened is, it’s a March elec­tion,” she said. “When you go to May and change it back to March, they just don’t real­ize it’s there.”
This pri­mary only had 649 absen­tee bal­lots, which is low com­pared to about 1000 or more.
“I hope peo­ple come out to vote for the gen­eral elec­tion,” she said.
Actual cards cast in this March pri­mary were 6,451: just 24.74 per­cent of the 26,073 reg­is­tered vot­ers in Mor­row County.
Mor­row County vot­ers favored Rick San­to­rum (2421) over Mitt Rom­ney (1260), Newt Gin­grich (638), Ron Paul (502), Rick Perry (50) and Jon Hunts­man (33) for the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial ticket.
The commissioner’s race between Olen Jack­son and Dick Miller ended with Miller tak­ing nearly 55 per­cent of the Repub­li­can votes.
“I am hon­ored to be the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for Com­mis­sioner in the Novem­ber 2012 elec­tion,” Dick Miller said. “I have enjoyed being a pub­lic ser­vant in the past and look for­ward, if elected in Novem­ber, to work­ing hard to do good for Mor­row County.”
Jack­son expressed thanks to his sup­port­ers and the county.
“Since May 1, 1996, when I was appointed to fill the unex­pired term of Gene McClaren, I have had the plea­sure of serv­ing Mor­row County as one mem­ber of the Board of Com­mis­sion­ers.” he said. “When I fin­ish my term on Jan­u­ary 2, 2013, I will have almost sev­en­teen years in the Com­mis­sion­ers’ Office. The early years were great, we had enough money to do the things we wanted to do but the past ten years have been a con­stant chal­lenge. The stress level has con­tin­ued to increase each year try­ing to man­age a bud­get that has gone from almost 9.5 mil­lion in the early 2000’s to 6.4 mil­lion in 2012. At the same time demands for ser­vices have increased and it has been a con­stant bat­tle to sup­ply each depart­ment with the fund­ing they need to oper­ate. The job is not easy, but I plan to fin­ish my term, which expires on Jan­u­ary 2, 2013, and at that time wish the next Board of Com­mis­sion­ers the best. I cer­tainly have appre­ci­ated all the fel­low Com­mis­sion­ers and staff I have worked with and the com­mu­nity sup­port I have received over the years. Mor­row County has been very good to me and my fam­ily.”
Posi­tions for the county engi­neer, recorder, pros­e­cu­tor, clerk of courts, com­mon pleas judge, sher­iff and coro­ner were unop­posed. County Engi­neer Randy Bush, County Recorder Dixie Shin­aberry, County Pros­e­cu­tor Charles S. How­land, Clerk of Courts Vanessa K. Mills, County Com­mon Pleas Court Judge Robert C. Hick­son, Jr., and Sher­iff Steven R. Bren­ne­man retained their places in the fall elec­tion, and Matthew Hintz is on the bal­lot for the County Coroner’s posi­tion.
The much-needed 1.25 mill 5-yr levy for Mor­row County DD failed 3893 to 2426.
Direc­tor Nancy Foglesong said, “We were dis­heart­ened with the levy results on March 6, as with any levy fail­ure. How­ever we also rec­og­nize and truly appre­ci­ate the grow­ing num­ber of com­mu­nity mem­bers who con­tinue to sup­port the work we do and take the time to vote and express their opin­ion and their civil respon­si­bil­ity. We are deeply sad­dened that for many fam­i­lies with mem­bers who have devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties, the levy fail­ure can be taken more per­son­ally, and we cer­tainly don’t want these fam­i­lies to feel aban­doned. The chal­lenges these indi­vid­u­als face are already a sig­nif­i­cant bur­den, and with another levy fail­ure, the wait­ing lists will con­tinue to grow. There are many oppor­tu­ni­ties through­out the year for county res­i­dents to learn more about the ser­vices and pro­grams of the County Board. We wel­come vis­i­tors and believe when peo­ple become informed, good changes will fol­low. We hope our efforts will reach those who don’t know what we do and they will have a change in heart.”
Unof­fi­cial results for Mor­row County as of 12:01 a.m. Wednes­day, March 7 were:
• Gilead Town­ship Ceme­ter­ies (Addi­tional 1 Mill 5 Years)
For The Tax Levy 546 Against The Tax Levy 771
• First Con­sol­i­dated Fire Pro­tec­tion (Replace­ment & Increase 4 Mills 5 Years)
For The Tax Levy 46 Against The Tax Levy 67
• Mor­row County DD (Addi­tional Oper­at­ing Exp 1.25 Mill 5 Yrs)
For The Tax Levy 2426 Against The Tax Levy 3893
• Card­ing­ton Vill W (Local Option Patrios Syn­ergy on premise sales)
YES 7 NO 49
• Dem County Com­mis­sioner (Full Term Com­menc­ing 1–3-13)
Glenda G. Wil­son 855
• Dem County Com­mis­sioner (Unex­pired Term End­ing 12–31-14)
John P. Gersper 846
• Dem County Engi­neer
L. Randy Bush 942
• Con­gres­sional Dis­trict Pres­i­den­tial Del­e­gates REP
Newt Gin­grich 638 Jon Hunts­man 33 Ron Paul 502 Rick Perry 50 Mitt Rom­ney 1260 Rick San­to­rum 2421
• Rep U. S. Sen­a­tor REP
David W. Dodt 188 Donna K. Glis­man 445 Eric LaM­ont Gre­gory 219 Josh Man­del 2291 Michael L. Pryce 792
• REP Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Con­gress (12th Dis­trict)
Pat Tiberi 3215 Bill Yarbrough 1293
• REP Judge Court of Appeals 5th Dist (Full Term Com­menc­ing 2–11-13)
Flite H. Freimann 1288 Jeanette Moll 2020
• Mem­ber of State Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, Man (26th Dis­trict) REP
Brad Cul­bert 411 Charles Knight 854 John R. Matthews 1736 Justin C. Smith 530
• Mem­ber of State Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, Woman (26th Dis­trict) REP
Lisa Cooper 2352 Karyle Mumper 1104
• State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive (87th Dis­trict) REP
Jeff McClain 2361 Den­nis E. Ster­ling 1123
• Judges of the Court of Com­mon Pleas (Full Term Com­menc­ing 1–1-13) REP
Robert C. Hick­son Jr 3432
• County Com­mis­sioner (Full Term Com­menc­ing 1–2-13) REP
Tom E. Harden 3391
• County Com­mis­sioner (Full Term Com­menc­ing 1–3-13) REP
Olen D. Jack­son 1180 Richard J. Miller 2274
• County Com­mis­sioner (Unex­pired Term End­ing 12–31-14) REP Thomas E. Whis­ton 3191
• Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney REP Charles S. How­land 3312
• Clerk of Court of Com­mon Pleas REP Vanessa K. Mills 3217
• Rep Sher­iff REP Steven R. Bren­ne­man 3763
• Rep County Recorder REP Dixie L. Shin­aberry 3546
• Rep County Trea­surer REP
Tim­o­thy D. Garry 2104 Den­nis A. Leader 1721
• Rep Coro­ner REP Matthew A. Hintz 3512
• Gilead Twp SE Cen­tral Com­mit­tee REP
Larry D. Harden 70 William H. Mills 50

Posted by Randa Wagner on Mar 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.