Lack of contest races leads to low voter turnout across Rockford region

Just 12% of Rockford's voters found their way to the polls for Tuesday's primary election.

Rockford Board of Elections Executive Director Jorge Paredes said the low turnout was anticipated.

"The presidential races have already been decided," Paredes said, "and in the city of Rockford and Winnebago County, a lot of offices had no candidates or just one candidate."

An official voter turnout will not be known until the early vote and vote-by-mail ballots are tallied.

Some 1,500 early votes were cast during the 40-day period starting Feb. 8, and as of Tuesday about 3,700 mail-in ballots had been received, Paredes said. Any ballots still in the mail but postmarked March 19 will be counted if received by April 2.

By state law, election authorities have until two weeks after the election to certify the results.

As of 10 p.m., the Winnebago County Clerk's election website did not say how many of the county's 94 precincts had been fully counted, and voter turnout information was not available.

Voter turnout in Boone County was 4.4%.

In Stephenson County, 5.9% of register voters cast ballots in Tuesday's election.

Chris Green is a Rockford Register Star general assignment reporter. He can be reached at 815-987-1241, via email at cgreen@rrstar.com and Twitter @chrisfgreen .

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Lack of contest races leads to low voter turnout across Rockford region