Record number of voters went to polls Nov. 4

Elmore County elections deputy Vivian Garcia knew from the turnout at the primary election there would be a high number of voters voting in the Nov. 4 general election.

"My gut would tighten up thinking about all the potential problems," she said. "But because of good leadership and management, none of those things went wrong."

Garcia called the handful of problems that occurred on election day minor.

Among those problems were running out of pens and not having a bilingual employee working in Hammett, as well as pens running out of ink at various polls.

Garica said a trip to Wal-Mart solved the pen problem and a Spanish-speaking citizen volunteered to help the poll workers register voters at Hammett who only spoke Spanish.

Garcia said she probably should have seen the language barrier being an issue and will take steps to avoid it from recurring in future elections but said there never seems to be enough pens, no matter how many they start off with.

In additional to the 5,867 already registered voters who voted on election day, with 1,319 voters registering at the polls, there was plenty of reasons for the pens to run out of ink.

Adding in the 2,716 absentee ballots cast prior to Tuesday, a total of 8,583 ballots were cast in the 2008 election in Elmore County. That number exceeds the previous high set in 2004 of 8,230 votes.

However the 2004 election showed a higher percentage of registered voters at 73.96 percent, compared to the 72.24 percent in this year's election.

Al Brandenburg spent election day working at precinct five, held at the First Southern Baptist Church.

He described the day as "busy," and said there were 15-20 people already in line when the polls opened at 8 a.m. He said it stayed that way the rest of the morning and could only remember one time where there wasn't someone actively voting in a booth during the day.

The elections were canvassed by the Board of Elmore County Canvassers Monday, making the results official.

Under state code, the board is made up by the same members who serve on the county commission, but that board must first adjourn and reconvene as the canvassing body, then adjourn and reconvene as the commissioner's board before performing any other official duties.

The results may be contested up to 20 days from the day the election was held.