REGION — Voter turnout may have appeared lighter than normal during the primary elections Tuesday, July 14, but in most cases was higher than two years ago.

The difference this year was in the number of absentee ballots cast.

New Sharon Town Clerk Pam Adams said the turnout was very good.

“It’s always about the same, usually low 200s. It’s comparable,” New Vineyard Town Clerk Michelle Beedy said. When contacted, she wasn’t able to provide numbers for the June 2018 primary election. “There were many more absentee ballots this year.”

In Eustis, about 40 absentee ballots were cast, Town Clerk Kathy Fearon said.

Farmington had the highest number of absentee ballots cast at 1,105.

“I just think more people are doing it this way. We encouraged it,” Farmington Town Clerk Leanne Dickey said July 7.

In Livermore and Rangeley, there were 30 to 35 fewer votes cast this year than in 2018. Jay had four fewer votes cast than in 2018 while Kingfield had 10 fewer this year.

All other towns providing numbers had more votes cast in 2020 than in 2018.

Farmington had 1,750 total votes in 2020.

In 2018 1,426 votes were cast when resident Janet Mills was the gubernatorial candidate, and 889 in the 2016 June elections, Dickey said.

Attempts to obtain voting numbers from Livermore Falls and Phillips were not successful.

 

Town	Total votes, 2020	Absentee votes, 2020	Total votes, 2018
Jay	847	446	843
Livermore	553	237	587
Chesterville	311	100	270
Farmington	1750	1105	1426
Wilton	899	379	827
New Vineyard	196	52	N/a
New Sharon	431	180	348
Temple	175	43	124
Eustis	196	40	148
Kingfield	187	54	351
Rangeley	353	138	383
Strong	339	100	304
Industry	229	62	197
Weld	180	60	139

 

 

 

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