St. Mary embraces early voting

St. Mary Parish’s voter turnout for the Nov. 21 gubernatorial general election continued a trend of higher early voter turnout but lower turnout on election day, the parish registrar says.
Overall turnout in the parish was a “pitiful” 38.12 percent for the Nov. 21 election, St. Mary Parish Registrar of Voters Jolene Holcombe said. Statewide turnout was 39.7 percent for the gubernatorial runoff.
About 27.4 percent of all votes cast in St. Mary Parish were cast during the early voting period.
A total of 3,405 St. Mary residents cast their votes early compared to the 9,041 voters who showed up at the polls Nov. 21.
“This just reinforces my opinion that voters are gravitating more and more towards early voting and less and less at the polls on Election Day,” Holcombe said in an email.
Of the registered voters in St. Mary, 10.4 percent voted early for the Nov. 21 election compared to the 9 percent of registered voters who voted early statewide. The state’s early voter turnout is usually around 10 percent of all registered voters, said Meg Casper, press secretary for Secretary of State Tom Schedler.
Casper said the current early voting schedule seems to be working well, and officials don’t see a need to change it.
Of the 32,651 voters registered for the Nov. 21 election, 12,446 people voted in the election. Of them, 8,006 voters are white, 4,193 are black voters and 247 identified themselves as belonging to other parties.
By party affiliation, 6,763 Democrats, 3,770 Republicans and 1,913 other-party voters voted in St. Mary Parish.
For the Oct. 24 gubernatorial primary election, St. Mary had 41.13 percent voter turnout, while statewide turnout was 39.2 percent.
Also in the primary, St. Mary Parish had 3,389 voters who voted early out of the 13,419 voters who cast ballots. That means 25.3 percent of votes cast were done so early.
State Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, said high early voting turnout and low overall turnout seem to be part of a recent statewide trend.
The low voter turnout for the gubernatorial general election may have been due to lots of negative campaigning leading up to the election, Allain said.
In one of the most contentious governor elections in decades, Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards beat U.S. Sen. David Vitter in the Nov. 21 runoff. Two other Republicans, Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle and Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, hammered Vitter with charges against his personal character in the run-up to the Oct. 24 primary. The negative tone, directed by both candidates at each other, continued during the general election campaign.
“I don’t know what to do to encourage voter turnout,” Allain said. “I’m a firm believer that voting is a right, and we should exercise our rights as much as possible. I’m a chronic voter. I vote every time.”
Voter turnout seems to be a function of how voters feel at the time, Allain said. No one has approached Allain with any specific plan of how to try to increase voter turnout, he said.
“I believe in voter turnout, and I would do anything that I thought would improve it. I’m not quite sure what that is,” Allain said.