We'll have a fuller report in tomorrow's newspaper on early voting in the May 4 Shelby County primaries, but the easy interpretation comes down to this -- folks who say spending $1 million on a partisan county primary appear likely to have even more ammunition by the time this election is finished. After 10 full days of early voting -- including a full six days at satellite locations last week -- a grand total of 12,739 ballots had been cast, or 2.1 percent of the county's 598,127 voters. Early voting throughout the county continues today through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
If trends continue and about 2,100 people per day cast early votes in the final four days of early voting, about 21,000 people will vote early. Recent elections in the county are showing a solid trend of more than 50 percent of votes coming in early-voting, but even if you double the early vote, that's merely 42,000 votes. Be generous and say 60 percent of votes will be cast on Tuesday, and that's still only 52,000 votes. Be stingy and say early voting will represent 55 percent of the vote, and you get 38,000 votes -- even worse than the horrible 1998 turnout of 40,720 voters, or 7.5 percent.
And this is in a year when there are contested elections at the top of the ballot among Democrats and Republicans for sheriff and Democrats for mayor. Republicans appear to be doing better than expected, with 42.8 percent of voters in a county where Republican John McCain got only 35 percent of the vote. Also of note -- women only constitute 55 percent of the vote (7,012 women have voted vs. 5,726 men), significantly below the traditional 60-plus percent of the vote women often comprise in Shelby County elections. And so far, more registered white voters have made it to the polls (5,049, or 39.6 percent) than black registered voters (4,983 voters, or 39.1 percent), with 2,707 voters either not disclosing race or in the "other" race category.
If trends continue and about 2,100 people per day cast early votes in the final four days of early voting, about 21,000 people will vote early. Recent elections in the county are showing a solid trend of more than 50 percent of votes coming in early-voting, but even if you double the early vote, that's merely 42,000 votes. Be generous and say 60 percent of votes will be cast on Tuesday, and that's still only 52,000 votes. Be stingy and say early voting will represent 55 percent of the vote, and you get 38,000 votes -- even worse than the horrible 1998 turnout of 40,720 voters, or 7.5 percent.
And this is in a year when there are contested elections at the top of the ballot among Democrats and Republicans for sheriff and Democrats for mayor. Republicans appear to be doing better than expected, with 42.8 percent of voters in a county where Republican John McCain got only 35 percent of the vote. Also of note -- women only constitute 55 percent of the vote (7,012 women have voted vs. 5,726 men), significantly below the traditional 60-plus percent of the vote women often comprise in Shelby County elections. And so far, more registered white voters have made it to the polls (5,049, or 39.6 percent) than black registered voters (4,983 voters, or 39.1 percent), with 2,707 voters either not disclosing race or in the "other" race category.
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