By Jonathan Zweygardt
Hays Post
Ellis County voter turnout was nearly 50% in Tuesday’s primary election.
According to unofficial results Tuesday, 9,467 of the 19,324 registered voters in Ellis County cast a ballot on or before election day for a voter turnout of 48.99%.
The two contested races in Ellis County were among Republicans in the race for county commission with one race to close to call.
In the race for Ellis County Commission District 1 Michael Berges leads Jim Pfeifer by nine votes – 838 to 829.
The First District represents a portion of Hays and the northwest part of Ellis County, including the city of Ellis. Current District 1 Commissioner Butch Schlyer elected not to seek re-election.
Nathan Leiker has a 126 vote advantage over Chris McGowne – 758 to 632 – for the top spot in the race for the County Commission District 3 seat.
Randy Marintzer received the third most votes with 323 and incumbent Joe Leroux was fourth with 284.
The Third District is the largest in land size of the three county commission districts. It is made up of six townships, which includes the entire eastern edge of Ellis County and an area north of Hays.
Ellis County Election Officer and Clerk Bobbi Dreiling said Tuesday there are still some provisional ballots that will have to be counted before the election results are official.
“Right now we have less than 150 provisional ballots that we still have to go through to see if they are either going to be rejected or accepted,” Dreiling said.
It will be up to the Ellis County election board to determine the fate of those ballots.
Dreiling said the election canvass will be at 8 a.m. on August 15.
There were no democrat candidates to file for either county commission seat. So barring a successful challenge from an independent candidate in the November General Election winners of both Republican Primary Elections will take a seat on the commission next January.
The 48.99 percent voter turnover is the highest it has been in several years according to Dreiling.
“In a primary it (voter turnout) normally runs about 20 to
25 percent,” Dreiling said. “So, it’s about a double turnout.”
Voter turnout in the 2020 primary election was 37.9%.