By Sherry Koonce

The News staff writer

It wasn’t a record breaker, but Tuesday’s Primary election in Jefferson County was one for the record books.

Of the county’s 152,311 registered voters, 50,847, or 33.38 percent, cast their ballots Tuesday in a historical election that drew intense interest mainly because of the two Democratic presidential candidates, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama, senator from Illinois.

There were 43,128 Democrats voting and 7,719 Republicans voting Tuesday. Though the numbers were high, in the 1988 presidential primary 60,873 Jefferson County voters went to the primary polls. In that year, Republican George H.W. Bush won his party’s nomination and Michael Dukakis was the Democratic nominee.

It was not until early Wednesday morning, at 1 a.m. , that the last primary votes were tabulated in Jefferson County. Democrats threw their support behind Barrack Obama, who garnered 24,721 votes, or 57.91 percent, compared to the 17,242, or 40.39 percent votes cast for Clinton.

In the Precinct 3 County Commissioner’s position race, the top two candidates, Thurman Bartie and Michael “Shane” Sinegal will be in a runoff election on April 8.

Bartie garnered 2,319, or 23.70 percent of the vote, while Sinegal won 1,847, or 18.88 percent.

Other candidates received the following: Alma Cantu, 1,522, or 15.56 percent; Mark A. Bernard, 1,516 or 15.49 percent; Raymond C. Johnson, 1,353, or 13.83 percent; and Jimmy Dike, 1,277 or 12.54 percent.

Overall, party officials said Tuesday’s local primary election ran smooth, but it will be a couple of weeks before the dust settles and the results of Democratic presidential caucuses are fully tabulated, due in part, to the number of people participating.

W. Joe Deshotel, Jefferson County Democratic Party executive director, said the number of Democrats caucusing Tuesday after the polls closed defied all expectations.

Though firm numbers for those attending are not yet available, Deshotel said volumes were high at all of the county’s 106 voting precincts.

“I’ve had phone calls all day from people telling me about all the different experiences they had. Jeff Darby, the chairman at Precinct 56 in Nederland, was telling me he had over 100 people caucusing last night. In 2006 he had two, in 2004 he had one, and that was him,” Deshotel said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

The Nederland precinct, he said, was not atypical of others throughout the county.

“In many places there were similar stories,” he said. “We had such a high volume, more than anyone expected.”