Some Confused With Ballots As They Vote In The Primary Today

Normally you can't cross party lines in a primary election, but today you can, because each race is considered a separate election.

Vicky Beauchamp, a poll inspector at the voting location at Franksville United Methodist Church in Caledonia, said the ballot has been confusing for some because people can cross party lines when they cast their votes and ultimately they are over voting in some races.

"You can vote for either a Republican or a Democrat (in one race), but not both," she said.

A number of over votes had been discovered in Caledonia, Mount Pleasant and Sturtevant.

Kathy Lynaugh in Sturtevant said there was quite a bit of overvoting so poll workers were making sure to give extra instructions as they handed each voter their ballot.

"We're pointing out the governor's race to make sure they understand," she said. "It takes an extra few seconds, but I think it's helping residents fill out their ballots correctly."

Each recall primary is a separate election event. Voters may cross parties in the recall primary, but they may still only vote once per office. For example, in the governor’s primary, you may only vote for one person, either a Republican or a Democratic candidate. There are only Democratic primaries for lieutenant governor and state senate.

"We've had a number of over votes because the ballot is different than what folks are used to," Beauchamp said. "Because this is a recall election, it's not a normal primary."

However, the poll workers are catching this when the voters put their ballots into the machines since the machines aren't accepting them. When that happens, the poll workers are asking for the voter to correct the error by filling out another ballot and tearing up the incorrect ballot.

Sharon Ingles is the Chief Inspector at Concordia Lutheran in Mount Pleasant, and she said overvoting was the biggest issue of the day. To help alleviate some of that, poll workers were encouraging voters to use the touch screen.

"The touch screen eliminates a lot of those questions," she said. "We've never had so many over votes as we've had today, and it's only one o'clock."