Primary election next Tuesday
Normally, County Clerk and Election Commissioner Rita Long already would have trained all of her poll workers. But this year’s election process is far from normal, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Long typically has 16 poll workers at the county polling site, the Perkins County fairgrounds dance hall.
The coronavirus had already cut that number in half with older people and those with health conditions dropping out. Then she lost two more, which put her down to six.
The Secretary of State’s office recognized the virus would cause some of the workers to bow out for the Primary.
They offered to do mass mailings in counties where more poll workers were needed. Long took them up on the offer.
Voters 50 and under in Perkins County got a letter encouraging them to volunteer to work the polls. Fortunately, Long said, seven people responded. She will complete training everyone by week’s end.
That will give her four poll workers for each of the three precincts, along with an alternate. Voting precincts in the county align with the commissioner district boundaries. She added that poll workers will be wearing gloves and masks and hand sanitizer will be available on location.
Central vote counting
This year counties received new high-speed voting-counting machines. As a result, no counting will be done at the polling location.
People who go to the fair-grounds to vote will place their completed ballots into a ballot box at the poll.
When the voting ends at 7 p.m. MT, Long will bring the ballot box to her office to count them there on the new machine.
Early voting ballots will be totaled Tuesday afternoon.
The county also received four Express Vote machines which are designed to assist voters with disabilities. One will be available for each precinct Tuesday.
Early ballots double
The virus has scared a number off from going to the polls Tuesday, opting instead to vote by early ballot.
Long said in a normal election 300-400 early ballots are requested. This election a total of 811 early voting ballots have been requested, many of which were mailed.
That represents 43% of the 1,884 voters registered to vote in the election.
Of those, 1,363 are Republicans, 266 Democrats, 248 nonpartisan and 7 Libertarians.
Presidential election YEAR
This year represents a presidential election year. Despite a Republican challenger, President Donald Trump will move on to the General Election in November.
Four Democrats appear on the Democratic ticket but all but Joe Biden have dropped out of the race.
Nebraskans will also vote for one senate seat, presently held by Ben Sasse. All three House representatives stand for election every two years, including this year.
The only local race to be decided on the Primary ballot is the Perkins County Hospital District board. There are only two candidates, John Long and Dianne Harms, seeking the two open seats.