County scores record turn-out in general election

Clerk/Auditor Jess Bradfield reported Monday that Cache County recorded an unprecedented 92.27 percent voter turn-out in the Nov. 3 general election.

CACHE COUNTY – With all local ballots finally counted, Cache County Clerk/Auditor Jess Bradfield reported a record turn-out of 92.27 percent of the county’s registered voters during the Nov. 3 general election.

Of the county’s 63,833 registered voters, 58,900 cast their ballots by mail or in-person, Bradfield said Monday.

On Nov. 10, Bradfield gave the members of the Cache County Council a preliminary report of 55,962 ballots counted at that time.

“In 2016, we didn’t even have that many registered voters,” Bradfield explained. “The previous record for the number of ballots cast (during an election in Cache County) was 47,110. That was an 85.46 percent turn-out.”

One week after the general election, with a few thousand provisional ballots still to be counted, Bradfield confidently estimated that the county was “trending toward a 90 percent turn-out.”

With that prediction now exceeded, Bradfield credited the staff of the clerk/auditor’s official for that success.

“They did an exceptional job, resulting in a record turn-out with record numbers; they simply did a record job …” he emphasized. “On behalf of my office, I also want to thank the county council members for their support.“

While the vast majority of Utahns voted by mail, Cache County voters also had an opportunity to vote in person at what Bradfield called a “voting super center” located at the Cache County Events Center at the fairgrounds in Logan (490 South, 500 West).

That single in-person voting center was open for early voting from Oct. 26 to 30 and from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Although Bradfield said that about 5,000 provisional ballots were cast at the voting center, many more county residents visited the facility.

“Some days during the early voting,” Bradfield recalled, “we’d see as many as 50 percent of people bringing in their mail-in ballots, filling them out in our voting booth and then dropping them off here. It’s something that they could have done at home, of course. But they want to feel that camaraderie that comes from in-person voting.”

Bradfield feels the election was a great success, but believes that his staff could function faster and more efficiently with updated supplies and equipment.

Finally, in response to a typically tongue-in-cheek question from County Councilman David Erickson, Bradfield told the council members that “no dead people voted in Cache County.”

“We’re not that kind of county,” Bradfield quipped, in reference to allegations by President Donald Trump of voter fraud in some counties in the states of Wisconsin and Michigan.

 

 

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