The Levy County Canvassing Board reviews ballots Tuesday night as Deputy William Hunter watches. Canvassing board members are County Commissioner Lilly Rooks, County Judge James T. Browning and County Commission Chairman Matt Brooks. Browning chairs the canvassing board.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
President Trump and Joe Biden won their respective Levy County presidential primaries Tuesday night with the Republican president taking three times the number of votes as the former vice president.
Trump won 4,303 votes of the 4,418 cast by Republican voters while Biden was by far the big winner among 16 Democrats, outdistancing his nearest rival, Bernie Sanders 1,341 to 466.
Voter turnout was 32 percent compared to 47 percent in 2016 when the competition for the open seat at the White House spurred greater voter participation.
“Four years ago there was an open seat for president. When you have a non-incumbent running for president it’s different,” said Supervisor of Elections Tammy Jones.
One of the more interesting statistics was the comparison of President Trump’s vote totals to those of the 16 Democrats. Trump totaled 4,303 votes compared to 2,285 votes for the 16 Democrats including Biden and Sanders.
Jones believes the Coronavirus and the fear of contracting the disease it causes, Covid-19, may have dampened voter turnout. She said the virus hasn’t been found in Levy County but it has surfaced in neighboring Alachua County.
“Some people didn’t get out today because of it,” she said. “I think it being in Alachua County, it’s close enough; a lot of people shop in Alachua County, they do business in Alachua, they have doctor appointments at Shands.”
Jones said 3,254 people voted by absentee ballot. The trend in the past few elections has been for high numbers of absentees. She said 22 absentee voters cast ballots with defects, such as questionable signatures, which can be cured by coming to the elections office by Thursday at 5 p.m. to clear up the problem.
As of about 9 p.m., there were 26 provisional ballots. Provisionals are those where the voter claims to be a registered voter but may be ineligible. The voter must prove their eligibility. More provisional ballots were expected from precincts that had transmitted their voting results electronically earlier but hadn’t delivered their hardware and provisional ballot information to the elections office. Jones was waiting for poll workers from the two precincts to arrive at press time.
Jones showered her precinct workers with praise for their outstanding performance.
“I just want to say my poll workers were outstanding. For them to show up today to do what they did, we had a full staff at all of our precincts. I think it’s amazing these people stepped up and worked today when they didn’t have to. My hat’s off to them,” Jones said.
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Enterprise Reporting by Terry March 17, 2020; Posted March 17, 2020
