So far early voting turnout for the primary is more than double that of the 2015 election, and state officials say it could indicate higher than average interest in this year’s election.
Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin says the early results are incredibly promising as people packed polling stations Saturday.
“Early voting in person is around a little over 56,000 voters, as opposed to in 2015, only 29,000,” said Ardoin.
He says when you add absentee ballots, the total number of votes skyrockets to nearly 77,000 total first-day votes.
Ardoin suspects the timing of the LSU/Florida game on October 12th is partially responsible for the surge in early turnout. He says it’s been on the front of several campaign’s minds.
“We talked about it so much that a lot of campaigns have been active in engaging their voters to vote early,” said Ardoin.
That being said, Ardoin says the early voting totals for today are expected to outpace last year’s day two as well.
Ardoin says the 2015 election only saw turnout in the upper 30s, but if these numbers hold we could be in for noticeably better numbers.
“If these numbers hold we may be looking in the low to mid-40s, but we are going to hold off on that prognostication,” said Ardoin.
If turnout does hit the mid-40s Ardoin says they’ll still have plenty enough stickers. He says they printed 3.2 million, more than the total number of registered voters.
