Voter turnout for this year’s city council and mayoral elections in Greene County were once again low, but not all cities saw a drop in percentages.

County Auditor Jane Heun says the City of Jefferson was one of the cities that saw an increase in voter turnout. This year there was 3,312 registered voters and only 396 ballots were cast for an 11.96% turnout which is an increase compared to the last city council and mayoral election in 2011 at 4.55% turnout.

Churdan had the highest voter turnout with a 38.08% and it more than doubled its turnout from last year of 15.9%.

All other towns saw a drop in their percentages.  The largest difference was in Grand Junction with just a 9.64% turnout compared to 2011 when there was a 32.02% voter percentage.

Paton followed suit having only 13.69% of registered voters at the polls on Tuesday and there was over 25% in 2011.  Scranton dropped to a 25.9% turnout rate when there were over 32% reported in 2011.  And only a slight drop in Rippey with a 8.98% turnout this year compared to a 10.12% in 2011.

Heun comments that it all depends on who is running in a particular election year that may cause more people to vote than in other years, but even the numbers for people who vote for city council and mayors aren’t very high, they are still better than school board elections.