By FRED KRONER
Champaign County was an accurate reflection of the state of Illinois in most aspects of Tuesday’s primary election.
Across the state, approximately 1.2 million votes were counted. The exact figure is yet to be determined as mail-in ballots will be counted until March 31.
In 2016 – the last year for a Presedential primary – 2 million Illinoisians went to the polls or mailed in ballots.
“It was much smaller than we anticipated,” Champaign County clerk Aaron Ammons said on Wednesday. “Before the coronavirus hit, we were looking at 2016, and comparing the two primaries, and expecting to see something similar.
“Obviously, thousands of people decided not to put themselves in large groups or come to the polling booths.”
This year in Champaign County, there were 32,917 votes that have been tabulated thus far. By contrast, the total in 2016 for the County was 59,003.
The 2016 turnout was slightly under half the number of registered voters (119,454) in Champaign County.
Ammons said his office received requests for about 3,900 mail-in ballots this year.
“We’ve received back at least 2,000 of those,” he said.
Ammons speculated that there was an additional factor in the low voter turnout in Champaign County.
“On the Republican side, there were not a lot of competitive races,” Ammons said. “There wasn’t a lot to motivate them to come out.”
Once again, Bernie Sanders was the leading votegetter in the Democratic primary in Champaign County. This year, it was the only County in the state which he carried.
Results indicate a sharp decline locally in support for Sanders, however.
In 2016, he held a 2-to-1 margin over his biggest rival, Hillary Clinton. Sanders won 66.4 percent of the vote in Champaign County compared to Clinton’s 33.2 percent.
On Tuesday, Sanders failed to get a majority of the Democratic votes cast in Champaign County. Pending mail-in ballots, Sanders had 11,877 votes (48.08 percent) and rival Joe Biden had 11,164 votes (45.19 percent).
It’s too early to project voter turnout for the November general election, but Ammons said, “depending where we are with the coronavirus, I anticipate a major, major influx of vote-by-mail requests.”
Ammons offered a special thank-you to those who participated in Tuesday’s primary.
“I understand some individuals wanting to keep their distance,” he said, “but it gives me great appreciation for those who said ‘I’ll be out there on the front lines,’ whether as a judge or as a voter.
“It is a crisis, but there were still some who wanted to participate in our democracy.”
