Election day sees record turnout

The official tallies appear to show a record-breaking turnout for Crook County at the general election, with a total of 4368 ballots cast.

This outstripped the 4143 ballots cast during the last presidential election in 2020, which then-County Clerk Linda Fritz said at the time was the most she’d seen in her 22 years of working for the county.

In the prior presidential election of 2016, for example, 3866 ballots were cast, while 3718 people voted at the general in 2012 and 3706 in 2008.

Presidential election years have historically seen a higher number of votes cast in Crook County, with much higher turnouts than the interim generals. In 2022, for instance, only 72% of voters headed to the polls.

This year, on the other hand, 91% of registered voters exercised their right to cast a ballot, which is exactly the same percentage as in 2020 and 2016 and similar to 2012’s 88% and the 90% turnout in 2008.

One clear difference from previous presidential elections in Crook County, however, is how many of those votes were cast via absentee ballots. This tendency increased during COVID-19 and has yet to drop to pre-pandemic levels.

This year saw 1236 absentee ballots cast early, by mail or at the absentee polling station within the courthouse, which was a 98% return on the ballots sent out.

This was lower than the 1651 absentee ballots received in 2020, when the pandemic was at its height, but significantly more than the 817 received in 2016 and 676 in 2012.

Meanwhile, a high number of new voters registered on election day – a total of 571.

But while this may seem anomalous, it’s not much different to years past. In 2016, for instance, there were 508 new voters on election day, and 473 in 2008.

The total number of registered voters in Crook County has also been steadily climbing, from 4120 in 2008 to 4776 this year.

Write-in Votes

The canvass board convened on November 7 to verify the results of the election. The audit returned no issues.

Only one vote was added to the tally from the unofficial results. It was a provisional ballot, says County Clerk Melissa Jones, from an individual who forgot to bring their ID to the polls and was asked to present it for verification the day after the election for the canvass board to review for eligibility.

The board certified three successful write-in candidates, all of whom have been informed and given the opportunity to decline their election.

These include two for Crook County Museum District Trustee: Neal Gray, with 17 votes, and Ogden Driskill, with six votes.

Marcia Havner received 64 write-in votes for Crook County Senior Service District Trustee.

Should any of these candidates decline, says Jones, the seat will be considered vacant and will be filled via appointment.

Recounts

No recounts were necessary following the results of this election. Only two races appeared to be close enough to trigger an automatic recount.

The first was for Sundance City Council. Candidate Randy Stevenson received 266 votes and Kyndell Schell received 258.

For a recount to be required, the difference in votes would need to be less than 1% of the number cast for Stevenson. In this case, the difference was eight votes but would have needed to be less than 2.66 votes for a recount.

The other race that appeared close was for the Specific Purpose Optional Tax (SPOT). Again, the difference between the votes needed to be less than 1%.

The tax received 2026 votes for and 2061 against, a difference of 35 votes. However, the difference would have needed to be below 20.84 votes to trigger a recount.

Crook County was not alone in declining to pass a SPOT tax this year. Of the six counties that placed the tax on the ballot, only Sheridan and Teton passed it, while Campbell, Johnson and Lincoln joined Crook in failing the proposition.