FRANKLIN, Pa. (EYT) – Despite a heated race for County Commissioner, turnout was relatively low in Venango County during Tuesday’s Primary Election hovering around 25%.

In total, Venango County residents cast 6,643 votes with 1,854 of them being Democrats and 4,780 of them being Republicans.

Denise Jones, Contracted Director of Elections for Venango County told exploreVenango that this was comparable to voter turnout in the 2015 municipal primary.

“I think people were interested in the Franklin City Council Race, the one between Christian Marshall and Ryan Redugeair,” said Jones when asked what race she thought people were the most interested in. She also believed that people were very interested in the race for Venango County Commissioner.

Ashley Smith, Judge of Elections at the Franklin City Hall precinct also believed people were interested in the Council race.

“Numbers-wise, it’s a bit low, but it’s been steady since 7 a.m.,” said Smith during the day Tuesday.

Jones also believed that people were very interested in the race for Venango County Commissioner, a race that saw incumbent Republican Commissioner Tim Brooks defeated by challengers Mike Dulaney and Sam Breene.

However, in regard to the statewide races not all Venango County officials felt that voter turnout was at a normal level.

“For Judges and people like that, I don’t feel there’s enough information on them,” Margaret Armstrong, Judge of Elections at the Free United Methodist Church polling place in Oil City said.

Armstrong later clarified that she felt this was especially prevalent in the Pennsylvania Superior Court race and that this could be a reason why people weren’t coming out to vote.

“Nobody comes to this area from that area down there,” Armstrong said. “We don’t know of them until it’s time to vote.”

Things were very different in nearby Clarion County.

“Voter turnout was around 42%,” Cindy Callihan, Clarion County’s Director of Elections said in a written statement.

Overall, 8,446 Clarion County Residents voted on Tuesday or 41.6 percent of the registered voters. That was well up from the 6,702 votes cast in the same primary four years ago, which accounted for 33.73% of registered voters in the 2015 primary. In the off-year primary two years ago, only 25.97% of the voters cast votes or 5,258.

The high voter turnout trend started early in the day, according to various election officials contacted by
exploreClarion on election day.

Ginny McKisson, Judge of Elections for the Clarion Borough polling place located in the basement of the Grace Lutheran Church, said that turnout early in that precinct was a little better than normal by Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s a little higher than average at this time,” Mckisson said Tuesday afternoon, while later saying that she thought that it was the Clarion County Court of Common Pleas race that was driving people to go vote in this region.

Sara Seidle-Patton was able to secure the nomination from both parties in that race.

While the judicial race may have been driving turnout in some parts of the county, officials in the Knox and Shippenville areas thought that the District Magistrate race was the one on people’s minds.

“There’s been a lot of interest in the Commissioners and I think in the Knox District Magistrate race,” Florabell Best, Judge of Elections for Shippenville Borough, said.

There were seven candidates seeking to fill the seat long held by District Magistrate Amy Long. Jarah Heeter was able to secure both party nominations.

While interest was high in Clarion County, it wasn’t so much so in Jefferson County where only around 23% of eligible voters turned out or 6,196 total voters.

“I would have liked to have seen it higher,” Karen Lupone, Election Director for Jefferson County said. “We only had one hotly contested race.”

That contested race was for Jefferson County Register and Recorder where 22-year-old Brianna Bullers beat out four other candidates.

“It’ll be interesting to see how [the Recorders race] plays out,” Lupone said while stating that there were many Democratic write-in votes that will not be tallied until this Friday.

In Corsica Tuesday, Frances Karchak, Judge of Elections at the Corsica Fire Hall precinct said things went well in the morning but were very slow.

“These elections are usually slow, though,” Karchak said around lunchtime Tuesday noting that there had only been a dozen voters up to that time.

While turnout was slow in the morning hours in Corsica, Brookville was a different story.

“The turnout has been better than we expected.” Mark Lusky, Majority Inspector at a Brookville precinct said, noting that he had seen 119 voters by 11:15 a.m.