Record-breaking turnout
Catoosa County voter turnout breaks records to back Trump and nix Amendment 1
Catoosa County residents went to the polls in droves this election season, setting records in early and overall voter turnout while overwhelmingly supporting Presidentelect Donald Trump and saying no to school Constitutional Amendment 1.
After experiencing high numbers during early voting, (17,161), Catoosa County’s 11 precincts saw nearly 10,000 more voters turn out on election day.
“It was busy during early voting and then on election day too,” said Tonya Moore, Catoosa County elections director. “We broke turnout records.”
Overall, Catoosa County saw 27,023 of its 34,831 active voters turn out to cast ballots, which equates to a 77.6-percent clip.
According to Moore, the only other election that came close to that type of turnout was in 2004.
“I know 2004 was a busy year as well, but that year there were 22,428, which was a 75-percent turnout,” Moore said. “And even then, there were only about 7,000 that voted early.”
Catoosa County’s largest precinct, Ringgold’s Freedom Center, served up a 78.8 percent turnout overall, with Chambers having the highest turnout (83.2), and Lakeview with the lowest turnout at 70.2-percent.
Donald Trump won every Catoosa County precinct, accumulating 77.4-percent of the county’s vote overall to a mere 17.7-percent for Hillary Clinton.
Clinton’s highest vote total occurred at the Ringgold precinct, where she accumulated 883 votes, or 19.4-percent of the precinct’s ballots.
Aside from the presidential race, voters were also eager to vote on the Constitutional Amendment 1, which proposed providing state accountability to intervene and fix chronically failing schools throughout the state.
Catoosa County residents voted no 14,568 (56.2 percent) to 11,325 (43.7 percent).
Ringgold Mayor Nick Millwood, who is also a teacher at Ringgold Middle School, is a big advocate for letting communities govern their own schools.
“Our communities elect leadership to determine the direction of our schools based on values and priorities we share locally,” Millwood said. “The idea of a potential state takeover of a local school district is troubling to me, and I am glad to see our electorate rejected the amendment in favor of home-based decision-making. It is our job as citizens to change leadership at the county level if our schools are failing. I am personally proud of our local leadership and have no interest in seeing their authority undermined.”
Although the races are decided, Moore says the elections will continue to enter provisional ballots to the overall numbers.
“We’re still getting everything finalized,” Moore said. “There may be a few more provisional ballots counted on Monday, which could change the overall number a little, but not significantly.”