Stearns County Hit Its Highest Primary Turnout In Over 20 Years
UNDATED (WJON News) -- Stearns County saw its highest voter turnout in two decades.
Auditor-Treasurer Randy Schreifels says the county recorded an overall turnout of 26.5 percent, with 21,913 voters casting ballots in person on Election Day. That's the highest Election Day turnout the county has seen for a Primary Election in over 20 years. Absentee voting also reached its highest level seen in recent primary elections. For this election, that county had nearly 105,000 registered voters, nearly 28,000 total votes were counted, with 6,000 absentees.
In 2022 and in 2018, the voter turnout was 23 percent.
Schreifels says,
"Election Day went smoothly with no incidents reported across any precincts. All voting equipment functioned reliably, with every machine operating on time at 7:00 a.m. Absentee balloting remained consistent, and precincts reported well-organized, efficient voting processes throughout the day."
If you have any questions, you can call the Stearns County Elections Office at 656-3920.
Statewide, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon says more than 1.1 million Minnesotans cast ballots in the primary. About 25 percent of eligible voters participated. This is the first time more than 1 million votes have been cast in a Minnesota Primary. The previous high was set in 2018 with over 925,000 ballots cast.
More Democrats than Republicans went to the polls on Tuesday. In the U.S. Senate race, there were a total of 406,521 ballots cast for Republican candidates and 697,171 ballots cast for DFL candidates. In the Governor's race, there were 413,279 total ballots cast for Republican candidates, and 685,013 total ballots cast for DFL candidates.
