Turn out for primary was typical

The turn out for the Ogle County primary election Feb. 2 was pretty much right in line with what County Clerk Rebecca Huntley expected.

The overall turn out for the primary election was just under 22 percent with 8,870 of 40,360 registered voters casting ballots.

“I was predicting that we would have a 20 percent turn out, so this was nearly right in line with what happened,” said Huntley.

Huntley said that the 2006 primary election, which was also a primary in which voters were choosing a sheriff candidate, and that turn out was much higher.

“In 2006, which is a comparable election, we had a 31 percent turn out,” said Huntley.

She offered up a couple of reasons for why she believed that the voter turn out was lower this time around.

“I think that people don’t like to come in and declare a party,” said Huntley. “I also think it was because the primary was moved to the first Tuesday in February when it used to be the third Tuesday in March. It makes it difficult for voters to concentrate on only four weeks after the holidays.”

This election did go off without a hitch, said Huntley, and it’s because of the volunteers.

“Everything went well today in Ogle County,” said Huntley. “I am grateful to all election judges because without them we wouldn’t have had the successful election that we had today.”