Orange County sees slight increase in voter turnout

Tuesday’s municipal elections brought new faces to local government and school boards and a new sales tax to the county, and they also brought more people to the polls than the 2009 election.

That was an increase from the 2009, when 11,819 people voted in a 16.85 percent turnout.

In total, early voters cast 4,243 ballots at four locations this election, a significant increase from last election.

Early voting drew 2,344 votes in 2009.

“This is not a heavyweight election,” said Jake Gardner, chief judge of the North Carrboro precinct. “But we’ve had a good turnout.”

East Franklin precinct’s chief judge, Iris Schwintzer, said the slow results were just what she would expect. Her precinct tallied 104 votes of 2,293 registered voters.

“It’s always slow when we just have the local elections,” she said.

But some precinct officials were less pleased with the turnout.

“I expected it to be a slow day, but I’m shocked and disappointed that it’s as slow as it is,” Alice Joyce, the co-chairwoman of the Greenwood precinct for the Orange County Democratic Party, said early in the day Tuesday.

Ridgefield, Battle Park, Coker Hills and North Carrboro saw the highest turnout in Orange County this year, with 20 to 30 percent of registered voters participating. All of those precincts are in Carrboro or Chapel Hill.

Ridgefield and Coker Hills also fell in that upper range in 2009, but four other precincts joined them in the range that year.

Voters said a number of issues drew them to the polls this year.

Craig Ashton, a Chapel Hill resident who voted at the St. John precinct at McDougle Middle School, said his grand-daughter just began school — and that prompted him to cast a vote.

He said he wanted to vote in support of the now-passed quarter-cent sales tax because of its proposed benefits to local schools.

“I want to make sure (my granddaughter) has good schools to go to,” Ashton said.

Thomas Brittian voted at Northside precinct Tuesday to ensure he was represented and to change expectations.

“I just don’t think enough African Americans and Latinos get out to vote unless they have a cultural interest,” he said.

“I want to break that stereotype.”

Katie Reilly, Conor Furlong, Cheney Gardner, and Tyson Leonhardt contributed reporting.

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