By Sherry Koonce
The Port Arthur News
March 05, 2008 06:46 pm
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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.”
Minutes from last night’s caucusing locations were coming in Wednesday, but were not due until Friday, he said.
Jefferson County Democratic party committees will meet sometime in the next week and a-half to make sure everything was done properly at caucus sites before announcing the results.
In all, there are 193 total Texas delegates — 126 from primary voting results and 67 from caucusing — that will be split between presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama.
According to CNN, as of Wednesday afternoon with about 38 percent of the state reporting their numbers, Obama was leading with about 55 percent of the state delegates in the caucuses, compared to about 44 percent for Clinton.
Deshotel said state party officials had set up hotlines for individual precincts to call once the caucusing was completed. Not everyone from the state’s total 8,700 precincts were able to get through, and caucus delegate results from those that were able to call the hotline, are unofficial, he said.
Chaos experienced at some of the caucusing locations spilled over to some post-voting Republican precinct conventions held at the same precinct locations, Doug Connor, Jefferson County Republican Party Chairman, said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
“We did have some problems concerning our precinct conventions,” Connor said. “There were just too many people for either a caucus or a convention.”
Overall, Connor said he was well pleased with the Republican primary election in Jefferson County which brought between 7,719 of the party’s voters to the polls.
Connor said he had expected more, but some Republicans who had strong feelings against either Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama voted in Democratic primary in an attempt to knock them out of the race as early as possible.
The lack of a contested Republican presidential candidate also contributed to less than record turn-outs, he said.
Connor said he was very pleased with the support from the County Clerk’s office. Any complaints about either party’s election should be directed at that party chair, he said.
Contact this reporter at skoonce@panews.com
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