Big primary turnout expected

By DANIEL PERSON Chronicle Staff Writer

In Gallatin County and across Montana, officials are seeing huge spikes in registered voters and absentee ballots from voters wanting to weigh in on today’s primary elections.

ALTON STRUPP/CHRONICLE Early voters line up outside the Gallatin County Court House to turn in their ballots Monday afternoon. “Right now (voter turnout) is way over what it’s ever been in any other primary,” Charlotte Mills, county clerk and recorder, said Monday. “We have no idea how many people are showing up at the polls tomorrow.”

Mills said between 11,500 and 12,000 absentee ballots have been given to Gallatin County voters, and that number that grew by 249 people Monday morning alone, when lines stretched outside the Gallatin County Courthouse and election officials had to cut people off at 1 p.m. when the office was scheduled to stop registering voters for the day. The office opened at 7 a.m. Monday.

Mills said the Democratic presidential campaigns have been the biggest factor in the attention paid to this year’s primary elections. Primaries usually see low turnout.

“The presidential campaigns have been asking people to vote early,” she said.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been devoting unprecedented attention to Montana, which for the first time in modern politics could have a voice in the nomination of a presidential candidate.

Gallatin County is not unique in the heightened interest, Secretary of State spokesman Bowen Greenwood said Monday.

“The campaigns have been driving a lot of people to the polls,” he said. “This is one of the most-exciting primaries in state history, if not the most exciting.”

Statewide, 628,135 people have registered to vote in the primary, 32,467 more than were registered in 2004, the last time Montanans voted in a presidential primary.

Many late comers have added to that number; 15,000 have registered since Jan. 1, and 9,000 registered in the past three months.

Many of them are voting absentee. As of Saturday, 104,193 absentee ballots have been distributed, and 77,665 of those ballots have been returned with votes cast. In the 2004 primary, just over 20,000 absentee ballots were returned with votes cast.

Same-day registration will allow all of these numbers to keep climbing today, and Greenwood said they undoubtedly will.

“The presidential campaigns have indicated they expect large numbers of their voters to register on Election Day, which could mean even more participation on Election Day than in the past,” he said.

“There will be lines, period. That’s the way they work.”

In Gallatin County in 2006, lines of voters who wanted to register on Election Day stretched out of the courthouse until midnight, with people anxious to weigh in on the heated race between then-Sen. Conrad Burns and challenger John Tester. Mills said she doubted today will see lines like those, but she doesn’t know for sure.

“There will be lines I bet, but I can’t tell you if it is going to be bad,” she said.

Voters can register to vote at the Gallatin County Courthouse until 8 p.m. today, when the polls close.

Daniel Person can be reached at dperson@dailychronicle.com or 582-2665.

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