County Primary Turnout Was Only 16%
by Randy Pierce
MADISON COUNTY — Only a little over 16 percent of registered voters in Madison County chose to participate in the primary election held on March 19 with better than two-thirds of those casting ballots in the Republican races.
According to figures prepared by the office of Madison County Clerk Linda Andreas, not including blank or spoiled ballots, there were a total of 28,617 people voting in this primary with 8,907 filling out Democrat ballots and the remaining 19,489 participating on the Republican side which saw more hotly-contested battles including those for the two top elected positions in the county government.
The participation level this time around represents a drop from the 2022 primary when 36,719 or about 20 percent of the 177,235 registered voters participated.
The decrease in those voting in this year’s primary was even more pronounced when compared to the last general election in 2020. Then, 74 percent of the 186,358 registered voters cast ballots with 55 percent of those in favor of Donald Trump for president of the United States and 42 percent for Joe Biden while the remainder supported marginal candidates.
That trend in the county, if measured on a partisan basis, saw an uptick for the Trump party in this year’s primary as over 68 percent of those voting did so on Republican ballots while 31 percent participated in the Democratic primary.
Biden earned nearly 92 percent of the county’s Democratic voters’ primary support while Trump was favored by 80.5 percent on the Republican side with Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina, capturing nearly 14 percent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis just over three percent and Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, a bit less than two percent.
Another, yet not uncommon, circumstance evident in the results of this year’s Madison County primary is the apparent lack of interest for individuals to serve as precinct committeepersons throughout the area, the elections for which traditionally appear on this type of ballot but not the general ones like that coming up in November.
On both the Democratic and Republican sides, there are a significant number of precincts for which no candidate filed petitions to be selected to fill those positions.
This includes, for Democrats, two precincts in the township of Marine, one of two in St. Jacob, 12 in Jarvis Township which takes in much of Troy, three in Pin Oak Township just north of Troy and west of Marine and 13 of the 25 precincts in Collinsville Township, all with no one to serve as Democratic precinct committeeperson.
For Edwardsville Township, which takes in Glen Carbon, 15 of its 26 precincts had no Democratic candidates for committeeperson.
On the Republican side, there were no candidates filing for committeeperson in one of the two precincts in St. Jacob Township and both of those in Marine Township.
For Jarvis Township which encompasses Troy, Stacey Pace, county board member, represents her precinct but for six of the other 11, there was no one who filed petitions for this role.
Illinois 55th District State Senator Jason Plummer is filling the role of Republican committeeperson for the second precinct in Pin Oak Township and Sue Dugan holds the position for Precinct One there, but the third one remains vacant.
Ten of Collinsville Township’s 26 precincts have no one to represent them as Republican committeepersons while those who do serve in that role include Madison County Board members Chris Guy of Maryville and Paul Nicolussi of Collinsville.
In Edwardsville Township’s 26 precincts, nine are without a Republican committeeperson while those filling such positions include County Board Chairman Kurt Prenzler, county board member Jason Palmero of Glen Carbon, newly-elected county board member Fred Schulte and Dwight Kay of Glen Carbon who ran against Schulte in this primary.
Precinct committeepersons traditionally represent the party they are affiliated with by collecting petition signatures connected to the placement of candidate names on election ballots, encouraging voters to go to the polls, distributing partisan campaign literature and, at times, responding to requests for assistance with various matters of concern brought forward by constituents.
