‘Disheartening Turnout’ For Missoula County School Trustee Election

Mail-in ballot elections are said to be far superior to traditional elections using polling places, however, turnout for Tuesday's Missoula County Trustee election proved to be disappointing to election officials.

Here are the results from the MCPS trustee election. the top three who will serve three year terms were; Michael Beers with 5,295, Diane Lorenzen with 4,451 and Vicki McDonald with 3,538.

Missoula Elections Administrator Rebecca Connors said on Wednesday after all the votes were counted that voter participation was 'disheartening'.

"Overall we had about 18 percent voter turnout," Connors said. "That covers all the races that we counted in Missoula County for schools and special districts. That includes 10,620 ballots that were returned, and we had over 57,000 registered voters that had received ballots in the mail. We would love to see 100 percent voter turnout for all elections, especially local elections because they have the greatest impact for us. With only 10,000 ballots returned out of 57,000, it is a little disheartening, but we anticipate much higher turnout for our primary elections in June and, of course, the general election in November."

Connors said the mail-in ballot turnout for this election was much higher than a similar election at the polling place.

"If we would have conducted this election at the polling place, we probably would have had only about half the turnout, or from eight to ten percent. Historically, anytime we have a mail-in or absentee ballot election, we have a much higher turnout that at the polls."

Complete results from all the races and levy requests can be found at the Missoula Votes dot com website.