The last voters squeeze in just under the wire to cast ballots in the May 19 Primary Election, in Henderson Kentucky.
This polling location at Jefferson Elementary is one of seven. Kentucky was one of six states to hold primaries that day. Others were Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana and Oregon.
In Henderson 22-percent of registered voters cast ballots — that’s compared to 11.9 percent in 2022 — the most applicable primary election — said Henderson County Clerk Renesa Abner.
Vanderburgh County experienced 8.35 percent voter turn out for this election.
“I wish you know, (that) would be higher always for every election,” Abner said, but added that the numbers are better than previous primaries. “I think that's driven by the local races again on the ballot, people are just very excited.”
Voters had a chance to choose candidates for city commissioners, fiscal court members and who they’d like to see replace Mitch McConnel in the US Senate.
She said better primary turnout generally means better general election turnout. Kentucky’s closed primary brought 25.67 percent turnout; the Indiana primary on May 5 was 15.8 percent.
On Primary Election night, polls closed at 6 PM sharp. Ballots then were brought by poll workers to the Old County Court building in locked durable cases. Election workers pour over everything on a folding table outside a storage room. This includes Abner.
“Presbyterian Church, one of our polling locations, just arrived with their results,” she said, her hands busy with paper electronic drives. “These V drives contain the votes, and so those are now going to be fed upstairs into a vote reader, and that's what's going to show on the display, so so we were just checking in all of the information that the poll workers are supposed to provide, and also checking off that we have all of these V drives to read.”
V-drives look and act a lot like regular thumb drives. They store ballot information.
After this, the drives are taken upstairs by elevator. The results end up online and on the big screen at the County Fiscal Court Courtroom.
“Okay, Isaac, coming to us after this,” said Greg Busby of WSON radio into his headset. “There's an ID, and there's some election bumper.” Busby and Erin Schmitt are setting up for a live broadcast as the results roll in across the large projector screen before them.
A few minutes later the results from those ballots Renesa and her staff just handled are scrolling down the courtroom screen.
Busby went live to add the update — “Republican for the Jailer office Eddie Vaught with 304 votes, 31-percent. Anthony Willett out to a big early lead with 651 votes, 68-percent.”
A block over, supporters of Jailer Candidate/Anthony Willett cheer as they got the news. Willett never lost the lead; he won the primary.
More on the Kentucky Primary Election statewide
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