Clarksville, Montgomery County voters head to polls for August primary, county general election
There were no lines and no problems reported Thursday as hundreds of Montgomery residents flocked to the polls to cast their ballots in the state primary and local county elections.
As the day began, dozens of campaign signs swayed in the lawn surrounding Hilldale United Methodist Church on Madison Street as residents arrived to cast ballots.
Several contested races, including sheriff, county mayor, school board, general sessions judge and county commission, would be decided by day's end.
Slow and steady all day
Although early voting results were encouraging with more than 9,000 votes cast throughout the county, Beverly Guinn, a precinct officer at the church, said the early morning turnout was slower than anticipated.
Guinn and her co-workers were expecting around 250 voters to cast in-person ballots at their precinct during the 12-hour day.
"We had 587 early voters," Guinn said. "We usually see about half of that total in person."
After the polls opened, Guinn said the precinct's slow trickle of voters were met with no technology issues. Things were running smoothly.
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She said the biggest challenge her staff of nine had Thursday was finding enough outlets and extension cords to plug in the voting machines.
It was a quiet morning across Montgomery County, in fact, as no issues were reported in any of the election commission's 38 precincts.
"Voting is going well ... all locations are up and running," Montgomery County Election Commission Administrator Elizabeth Black said.
'Every vote counts'
In addition to the county general election, voters are also making decisions in a state primary that features a contested governor's race and local state races.
For Dori Livingston, voting was an important way to start her day.
"Every vote counts," she said as she left Hilldale United Methodist Church.
About seven miles away, voters like Cynthia King were leaving St. Bethlehem Elementary School on Wilma Rudolph Road, having cast their ballots.
King said voting was easy, but she said she faced a challenge when she was trying to type in a write-in candidate for one of the races.
"I wish it was a little more keyboard-style," King said. "But it wasn't bad at all. Everyone was friendly and helpful."
King said she knew she wanted to get to the school as soon as polls opened.
"These people make important decisions that affect us at a human level," King said. "I think we often overlook how important it is to vote. I think a lot people have daily struggles that can helped by whom we vote for."
By midday on Thursday, the voter turnout was modest at Woodlawn Elementary School, and there was a slow trickle at Minglewood Elementary.
"I think we've had a pretty good voter turnout so far ... right now we're at a total of 225 voters for the day," said Woodlawn precinct official Finis Clark, around 1 p.m.
People 'want to be heard'
His team of eight workers was eager to guide voters to the four available voting booths.
"It seems like people are pretty interested in this election overall, although I don't hear them say any particular race is bringing them out to vote. Everybody just generally seems to want to be heard in the election process and participate, and exercise their right," Clark said.
The election process, itself, was running smoothly inside the Woodlawn gymnasium, Clark said, while outside in the humid August afternoon, candidates and campaign workers were twirling candidate signs, waving vigorously and striving to get the attention of every passing voter.
But they were honoring the election law distance restrictions for not getting too close to the gymnasium.
"We did have one person who came in here to vote wearing a t-shirt that had a candidate's name on it, and I sent her to the restroom to at least turn the shirt inside-out where the campaign message couldn't be seen," Clark said.
"She did that and didn't fuss about it."
At Minglewood, poll official Martha Brockman said that, as of 1:30 p.m., her voting site had a total of 64 voters.
"It's been slow that way, all day here," Brockman said.
"I had thought that, maybe at lunchtime, we would see more voters, but we didn't. Maybe some more will come in later this afternoon when they get off work.
"Or maybe it's because many of them voted early, we just don't know."
Brockman had a team of four voting machine operators, a special clerk and three registration workers. Almost all of them were idle with no voters to greet in the early afternoon hours.
But Roger and Margaret Blair were a rare exception. They take election day seriously.
The Blairs strolled into the Minglewood cafeteria area shortly before 2 p.m., intending to cast their ballot "because it is important that we all exercise our right," Roger Blair said.
Polls were open for residents until 7 p.m.
A total of 9,139 votes were cast in early voting across Montgomery County, counting absentee ballots.
Reporter Marissa England contributed to this report.
Reach reporter Craig Shoup by email at cshoup@gannett.com and on Twitter @Craig_Shoup.
Reach Jimmy Settle at jimmysettle@theleafchronicle.com or 931-245-0247. To support their work, sign up for a digital subscription to TheLeafChronicle.com.
This article originally appeared on Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle: Clarksville voters head to the polls to decide local, state races
