Published Wednesday, November 6, 2002
than expected
Pa. Senate races get credit
More than 44 percent of Mercer County's 74,364 voters cast ballots Tuesday, exceeding county election Director James Bennington's prepolling prediction.
"It seems like the polls were pretty busy," he said.
Bennington said voter turnout for the off-year election was better than the last presidential election. He said intense interest in two races likely brought out the crowd.
"I think people really got out for this governor's race," he said. "They were bombarding people with phone calls, literature ... and the Robbins-Klaric race, that was a pretty good one."
Unofficial results show 33,000 votes cast in Mercer County, with more Republicans than Democrats voting -- roughly 52 percent to 45 percent.
Bennington had predicted about 25 percent to 26 percent turnout. As the votes rolled in Tuesday night, that percentage crept up to 44.3 percent. Turnout for May's primary barely scraped 21 percent.
By 1 p.m., more voters -- 154 -- had showed up at the Shenango Valley Senior Center in Hermitage than the total number who voted there in May, according to Margaret Iorio, judge of elections for Hermitage NW-3.
Lou Ann Nelson, a poll worker, said about one-third of the voters in the precinct didn't know the polls were at the senior center and first went to the old polling place.
Katheryn Stevens said there were no signs outside Southwest Gardens Economic Development Corp. in Farrell, indicating it was a polling place for voters in precinct 2-2. She said she's used to seeing a "vote here" sign and signs prohibiting politicking close to the polls. She called it "appalling."
"How are people supposed to know? I thought maybe they changed the polling place and didn't notify me," she said.
The absence of those signs at several polling places could be blamed on a shortage of signs, the wind, or both, Bennington said.
He said signs were put up during the weekend, but many disappeared.
"We'd gotten some reports they were found blown down over the hill by the wind," he said. "I saw one myself on Saturday ... I retrieved it."
Bennington said there was also an apparent shortage of signs, something the election board will correct by spring.
"We can assure voters that there will be signs next time," he said. "We'll make sure we send out more than one per precinct."
Shirley King, 72, of Hermitage, said she is a regular voter but the governor's race was foremost on her mind in an election where there weren't many choices on the ballot.
"I think it was a pretty serious decision," Mrs. King said. "The seniors need help." She said with hospitalization and minimum wage, there are a lot of other groups of people in Mercer County who also need help.
In Greenville, poll workers at the public library had 203 voters by noon. Only one problem was reported: A voter leaned on one of the touch screens and broke the aluminum legs. The machine was fixed soon afterward, poll workers said.