County Clerk Expects Plenty of Primary Participation

New poll numbers show about a third of voters are undecided on who they will vote for in the upcoming primary election. But County Clerk Lisa Freiberg says even with those numbers – she’s predicting a lot of people will show up at the polls. 

Freiberg has spoken to a number of local voters, and she thinks “people are going to come out. I anticipated a
higher than normal turnout in the midterm election for this primary. And I
truly believe that we are going to see a higher turnout than we have in the
– four years ago even for this August. The talk is out there.”

Freiberg tells us absentee ballots have been flying off the shelves, and plenty of people are asking questions. She finds “a lot more people were concerned about the state level contests rather than the local ones, that kind of surprised me. But then again when I look at an April turnout compared to a fall turnout, it really shouldn’t surprise me because when we see a max of 30-percent turnout in April and more of a 70-percent turnout in November, it shows that more people are concerned about state and federal office.”

Freiberg adds that there are more candidates on the ballot than some people realize. There will be ten names – not eight – on the Democratic gubernatorial ballots, despite two candidates announcing they were dropping from the race. Freiberg says “there’s a lot of choices out there. Just to sum it up, there are a lot
of choices for that US
Senate race on the Republican side. There’s two candidates that are definitely
getting a lot of publicity, but there are five candidates on the ballot on the
Republican side for the position of US Senator.”

The frontrunners in the Republican primary race for US Senate, Leah Vukmir and Kevin Nicholson, are seeing a tight race. Freiberg adds that people who vote in primary elections tend to be more educated about the races and candidates on the ballot.