With the unofficial results of Tuesday’s election tallied up in Greene County, there was a lower voter turnout this year compared to four years ago.

According to the Greene County Auditor’s Office, 3,670 people cast a ballot for this gubernatorial election of the 6,529 registered voters in the county, for a total of 56.21-percent voter turnout. In the previous gubernatorial election in 2018, there was a little over 62-percent voter turnout with 4,132 of the 6,644 registered voters. Deputy Auditor Billie Hoskins believes some of the reasons why there was a lower turnout this year is due to changes in the law from the legislature.

“I think a couple of the main reasons: the first one would be because they (the legislature) did shorten the time frame that people can absentee vote from 29 days down to 20 days. And they also did shorten the time frame where we can mail a ballot to somebody that wants to absentee.”    

Another recent election change was decreasing the amount of voting precincts in Jefferson from three to two and only one polling location at the Greene County Community Center. This change was due to when the county redistricted after the 2020 US Census the city of Jefferson lost population. Hoskins shares her thoughts on how the voters received the change.

“I think overall the voters really liked it because they’re in one spot and if they weren’t quite sure where they needed to go, they just had to direct them to the other side of the gymnasium. It’s not that they had to travel somewhere else to vote.”  

The election results will remain unofficial until the Greene County Board of Supervisors canvass the votes at their meeting next Tuesday.