Following statewide trends of increased voter turnouts for Tuesday’s primaries, Mower County was no exception.

Mower County Auditor/Treasurer Steve Reinartz stated that the county had 19,680 registered voters for 2018, which had remained somewhat consistent over the span of the last several years. There were 4,458 ballots that were cast. There were also round 163 new registered voters on Tuesday and there were 928 mail-in and absentee ballots, according to Reinartz. 

“Voter turnout was much higher,” he said. “Back in 2016, we had 1,100 some voters during the primaries. We’re about four-times higher than what we had.”

This year, much of the ballot tallying was finished by 10 p.m., which improved “tremendously” since 2016, according to Reinartz.

“It was a lot smoother with some of the mail-in ballots and absentees,” he said. “We’re pretty good and organized. This was our second time, and the process was a lot smoother than a year ago.”

Primaries statewide saw Minnesota voters turnout in significant numbers—thanks partly because of advance balloting totals—and posted the most votes for a primary in Minnesota since 1982, according to various state news outlets.

Earlier, Secretary of State Steve Simon tweeted on social media that 902,119 Minnesotans had voted, a 22.7 percent overall turnout, which was the highest percentage for primaries since 1994.

With Mower County, this year’s primaries were “much more organized” than the 2016 general elections. Reinartz attributed much of the increase on the county picking up two new mail-ballot precincts, which had about a 40 percent turnout.

“I mean, that helped some of it. I guess there were really some other things,” he said. “There were a lot of state elections that were on the ballot, and some things locally that also helped with turnout.”

Not to mention that this was only for the primary elections. Come Nov. 6, it’s possible that the primary elections could give a further insight to what the general election turnout could potentially be like. However, Reinartz said that Mower County usually saw more voters come to the polls in November, and had seen usually 80 to 85 percent voter turnout during general elections.

“There’s a lot of state offices on the ballot,” Reinartz said. “We do have all the county commissioner positions, and my position, that will be on the ballot. As well as city elections. Statewide, Minnesota sort of prides themselves on high voter turnout.”