EDITORIAL: There’s real consequence to primary election vote; turnout can be deciding

Posted 7/5/16

We do know this. There is no presidential primary election in Wyoming, so the general election runoff in presidential election years is the only time that Wyoming voters have any kind of say in electing a U.S. president.  It is a big deal, and the …

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EDITORIAL: There’s real consequence to primary election vote; turnout can be deciding

Posted

People want to vote in the presidential election.

The official voting records are unequivocal on that subject. The same records are a little puzzling on what it takes to motivate the electorate to go to the polls at other times.

We do know this. There is no presidential primary election in Wyoming, so the general election runoff in presidential election years is the only time that Wyoming voters have any kind of say in electing a U.S. president.  It is a big deal, and the numbers bear that out. In the last presidential election of 2012, a whopping 14,705 total ballots were cast in November in Park County, with voters giving Mitt Romney a 79 percent to 21 percent edge over Barack Obama.

Here’s a curious statistic. Only two and a half months earlier, in the 2012 primary election in Park County, only 6,941 total ballots were cast — 7,765 fewer votes than were cast in the general election. It’s fair to say voters stayed home in droves during the August primary.

That’s the dilemma facing candidates in the coming Aug. 16 primary election in Park County and Wyoming. The featured statewide race to select party nominees in the contest to succeed retiring Cynthia Lummis in Wyoming’s lone congressional seat has nine Republicans and two Democrats on the ballot. To them, the August vote is a really big deal, as only the primary winners will punch a ticket to November. 

The same is true for state legislative and county commissioner runoffs in contested primary elections.

The Park County Elections Department says there were 12,053 voters registered in Park County as of the end of March 2016. The challenge: How to get them to view the primary election with the same importance as the November general election.

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