Almost 3,300 vote early in St. Mary

Nearly 3,300 voters cast their ballots early for the Oct. 24 Gubernatorial Primary election in St. Mary Parish as of the close of polls Saturday, and another couple of hundred more absentee ballots may trickle in this week, the parish registrar of voters said.
At the end of early voting Saturday, a total of 3,296 people voted in St. Mary Parish concluding the seven-day early voting period. Five hundred sixty people voted Friday, while 564 people voted Saturday.
Overall, 1,486 male voters and 1,810 female voters have voted early for the primary election. A total of 1,654 Democrats, 1,150 Republicans and 492 other party voters cast ballots. Two thousand four hundred fifty-two white voters, 797 black voters and 47 voters of other races voted. Three thousand eighty-three people voted in person, while 213 people have voted via absentee ballot in St. Mary Parish.
St. Mary Parish Registrar of Voters Jolene Holcombe said early voter turnout was slightly less than the governor’s race four years ago, “but we still have quite a few outstanding mail ballots that we’ll be accepting all week long.”
In the 2011 primary election, St. Mary Parish had 3,436 voters turn out to vote, and Holcombe hopes 2015 primary totals we’ll get close to the 2011 turnout, she said. Holcombe called the 2011 turnout “a pretty good number.”
However, the number of registered voters in the parish has dropped by about 750 voters during the past four years, Holcombe said.
In addition to the governor’s race, St. Mary Parish voters have lots else to vote on including parish president, sheriff, District 51 State Representative, 16th Judicial District Court Judge, Division D and BESE District 3 Representative.
Holcombe isn’t sure what the early voting turnout may mean for turnout on election day, she said.
“A lot of times the early voting numbers don’t translate to the same numbers on election day,” Holcombe said. “St. Mary doesn’t have a real good track record for high voter turnout on election day. I’m just hoping that we hit 50 percent (turnout).”

This story was written by Zachary Fitzgerald of The Daily Review staff. Reach him at zfitzgerald@daily-review.com.