Issue date: 4/10/09 Section: News

Robin Cox, wife of Mike Cox who ran for Charleston Township Road Commissioner, greets Pud Hanner, who ran unopposed for Charleston Township Clerk, on election night as results are posted on a screen in the Coles County Courthouse. (Karolina Strack/The Daily Eastern News)

Voter turnout for Coles County's election Tuesday was low, with only 19.6 percent of eligible voters casting ballots, said Coles County Clerk Sue Rennels.

"(That) is always disappointing," Rennels said. "This is an election where grassroots decisions are made."

The turnout was especially low in Charleston, where only 14.8 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the mayoral or city council election, according to unofficial vote tallies.

Turnout in the presidential election last fall was 70.7 percent; while in 2004, it was 58 percent.

The overall turnout in Coles County was 35.29 in the 2008 primary.

That was up from 13.6 percent in 2004 and 17.9 percent in 2000.

Rennels said her office, which oversaw the election, encountered few problems election day.

"The election went great," Rennels said. "I couldn't tell you a problem worth even speaking about."

Rennels said the election ran smoothly largely because of preparations by her office.

Many townships and cities in the county have different styles of ballots, making it harder to tabulate the election results, Rennels added.

"These small elections are a lot of work for our office because of the many different ballot styles," Rennels said. "There was a lot of setup work for us."


Joe Astrouski can be reached at 581-7942 or at jmastrouski@eiu.edu.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools

The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.

Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.

Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.

If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.