43
Youngstown’s overall turnout for Democratic council primaries was 13.1 percent
YOUNGSTOWN
Depending on how you look at it, turnout for Youngstown City Council’s seven Democratic primaries was abysmal or pretty good for an odd-year election.
Of the city’s 42,726 registered voters, 5,578 cast ballots in last week’s primary. That’s a 13.1 percent turnout. Mahoning County’s overall turnout was 17.8 percent for a primary in which only one-third of registered voters could even cast ballots.
However, just counting Youngstown’s 10,404 registered Democrats, turnout in the city jumped to 53.6 percent.
The Democratic primaries for the seven council seats were the only items on the ballot in Youngstown. There was no citywide issue or candidates.
Some Republicans – there are 906 in the city — and independents and minor political party members — there are 31,416 of them, nearly all independents — voted in the Democratic primary. That information isn’t yet available from the board of elections.
But elections officials say voters who aren’t Democrats likely made up a tiny fraction of those voting in Tuesday’s primary.
“The 13.1 percent is not an accurate figure,” said David Betras, Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman and vice chairman of the county board of elections. “You need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. This was a Democratic primary.”
He added: “If you’re a Republican or not affiliated with a political party, you had nothing to vote on. If you went to the polls as a Republican and asked to vote Republican, you couldn’t. If you are not affiliated with a party and tried to vote, they’d say, ‘Nice to see you, but there’s nothing for you to vote on’” unless they asked for a Democratic ballot.
In the 2013 primary, which featured a citywide Democratic mayoral race and a failed anti-fracking charter amendment, overall turnout in the city was 15.7 percent. In that primary, 64.1 percent of registered Democrats voted.
In last Tuesday’s primary, the largest overall turnout was in the 5th Ward on the city’s lower West Side in which five candidates ran for the Democratic nominee for council.
The best Democratic turnout was 58.3 percent in the 7th Ward and 58.1 percent in the 6th Ward. Both are on the South Side.
As in the 5th Ward, there were no incumbents running in the 6th and 7th Wards Democratic primaries. The 6th had three candidates, and the 7th had four.
The lowest turnout percentage of total voters and registered Democrats was in the 4th Ward on the upper West Side. Overall turnout was 10.3 percent, and Democratic turnout was 44.9 percent.
In that ward, incumbent Mike Ray scored the largest margin of victory over his challenger of any council race in Youngstown. Ray received 83.7 percent of the vote. Ray is also the only Democratic primary winner in the city without a general election opponent.