A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Election judges Patricia George and Chris Connor help out Cloquet resident Bob Keppers during the presidential primary election on Tuesday at Journey Christian Church in Cloquet. It was a slow day across the state and country on Super Tuesday, as President Biden and Donald Trump cruised to easy wins.
Cloquet resident Bob Keppers marked his presidential primary ballot at the church in Cloquet.
Despite low voter turnout during the presidential primary on Tuesday, election judges kept busy during the day managing ballots and supplies. Patrick Began, Patricia George, and Chris Connor worked at the Ward 1, Precinct 3 polling location at Journey Christian Church in Cloquet.
Carlton County voters proved none too eager to decide presidential nominees earlier this week.
Voters turned out for the presidential nomination primary Tuesday at a rate 10 percent lower than four years ago.
Only 4,101 ballots were cast among 22,377 registered voters, or 18 percent, compared to a 28 percent turnout in 2020 on the way to the first go-round between Democrat incumbent President Joe Biden and Republican former president Donald Trump.
"It has been a lower turnout for the presidential nomination primary," county auditor Kevin DeVriendt said late Tuesday.
He was acknowledging the generally poor turnout for an every-four-years ballot that includes only the presidential race and forces voters to choose one party primary to vote in, either Democratic-Farmer-Labor, Republican or Legal Marijuana Now.
Both President Biden and Trump prevailed handily in their races statewide and locally. Running against party challengers, and in Biden's case an uncommitted option, Biden won 70 percent of the DFL vote statewide, and Trump took the GOP with 69 percent of the state party totals. Republicans hit the polls harder than the Democrats, choosing Trump over Nikki Haley (29 percent), and doing so by turning out more aggressively with a quarter more voters.
In Carlton County, Trump beat Haley, 73 percent to 24 percent, 1,758 votes to 584 votes. Comparatively, Biden received 1,370 votes from Carlton voters, compared to 153 for uncommitted, and 61 votes for challenger Dean Phillips.
All told, 2,404 Republicans voted in Carlton County, 1,638 voters went DFL, and 39 chose from Legal Marijuana Now.
The low overall turnout didn't dampen the effort by the county's more than 220 election judges.
"The election went well," said DeVrient, the county's top election official as its auditor/treasurer. "We've got a good group of election administrators and election judges countywide. We are fortunate to have such dedicated and talented people working elections in each city and township along with the county."
In addition to 23 precincts using election day voting, there are 16 mail-in precincts due to the rural nature of the county.
DeVriendt said an "understanding of how mail-ballot precincts work" was the top hurdle facing the election. Mail-in voters received all three primary ballots and were instructed to turn in only one ballot. At the polls, voters had to sign an oath to one party and received only that party's ballot.
Biden faced an "uncommitted" option for DFLers who wanted to share their party loyalty while acknowledging dissatisfaction with the incumbent and his administration. Across the state, and in states with the uncommitted option, voters were turning to the uncommitted option to express their opposition to Biden's loyal support of Israel in its war with Hamas.
"Only the Democrats had the option," DeVriendt said of the uncommitted spot on the ballot. "It was because the parties chose if they wanted it, and the Dems did."
Only 29 DFL voters in Carlton County chose uncommitted in 2020, compared to 153 on Tuesday.
The primary season continues in August, when a full slate of federal, state and local primaries will be conducted Aug. 13, followed by the 2024 presidential and general election on Nov. 5.
