« Primary: Clinton, Obama camps work phones up to end | Today | R.I.: Clinton leading Obama, McCain beating Huckabee »

March 4, 2008

Elections chief: Primary turnout may rival 2006 election's

Robert Kando, who heads up the state Board of Elections, said today's primary turnout may be comparable to the turnout in a general election.

Kando said the last hotly-contested general election was in November 2006 for governor and Senate races.

Some 206,000 votes were cast in 2006, Kando said, and he thinks it may be around that number in the primary.

"Delighted with the turnout today," said Kando.

The number of mail-in ballots also soared for this primary.

Kando said that the board had received about 5,000, which it was starting to count just after 9 p.m. That's compared to 1,400 in the last presidential primary.

The mail-in ballot results will be reflected as a lump tally on the Board of Elections Web site, and not included in individual precinct results, he said.

Kando also said he expected polls to close on schedule at 9 p.m., though there may be a few stragglers who were left to vote inside at that time.

Unofficial results from the Board of Elections were expected to show up on its site around 9:15 p.m. and to be updated every 15 minutes. Those results are also available on projo.com.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney, with reports from Pam Cotter of projo.com

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 9:18 PM | Permalink

Comments

Post a comment

Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published. Name and email are required; email address will not publish.

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)