Published: November 05, 2008 03:30 am      

County sees good voter turnout

PALESTINE — Almost 61 percent of Anderson County’s nearly 28,000 registered voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s general election, according to the county’s top election official.

According to figures provided by the Anderson County tax assessor/collector’s office, a total of 16,761 votes were cast in Anderson County, meaning 60.7 percent of the county’s 27,618 registered voters participated in the election.

Anderson County’s turnout likely was below the statewide turnout as Secretary of State Hope Andrade had projected that 68 percent of the Lone Star State’s 13.5 million registered voters would cast ballots in the election.

Anderson County Tax Assessor/Collector Teri Garvey said late Tuesday night the general election went well from her office’s perspective, giving credit to her staff of 12 full-time and two part-time employees who worked the election.

“It went so smoothly to be such a big election,” Garvey said. “The (voting) machines ran well. We didn’t run out of ballots this time, thank goodness.”

Garvey pointed out her office ordered twice as many ballots as normal, anticipating a large turnout.

“We normally order (a number equal to) 40 percent of the registered voters,” Garvey said. “This time, we ordered 80 percent.”

As of early today, Democrat Barack Obama, who will be sworn into office in January as the 44th U.S. president, was being credited with 51.3 percent of the total popular vote, while Republican John McCain was shown with 47.5 percent.

Anderson County, however, voted heavily in favor of McCain as he gained 71 percent of the total votes cast locally (11,855 votes), while Obama received only 4,624 votes (27.7 percent).

A total of 115 Anderson County voters opted for the Libertarian ticket of Bob Barr and Wayne A. Root, while there were a surprising 97 write-in votes cast in the presidential election locally.

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Paul Stone may be contacted via e-mail at pstone@palestineherald.com