BENTONVILLE — More than 4,000 voters cast their ballots early in voting for today’s special millage election, more than twice the number in the Bentonville School District’s most recent millage vote.
According to county officials, 4,141 voters cast their ballots in the early voting period. Election Day is today.
The School District seeks voter approval of a 6.7-mill increase. If approved, the district would get $128 million. Of that amount, $94 million would go to build a second high school in Centerton. The 6.7 mills, if approved, would push the school district’s millage rate to 50.4 mills.
Kim Dennison, Benton County’s election coordinator, said she was pleased with the voter turnout and the relatively smooth early voting period. Early voting began June 19, and election officials had to move three extra voting machines into the County Clerk’s office to handle the larger than expected numbers of voters. Otherwise, Dennison said, early voting went well.
“I think it’s a great turnout,” she said. “We’ll just have to see which way it goes.”
Dennison said voter turnout was slightly lower than expected at the Centerton Fire Station, but she attributed that to it being a new polling place. The fire station replaced the New Life Christian Center as a polling place for Centerton voters after church officials expressed some concerns about the signature gathering taking place on church grounds during the May 22 primary.
“It’s just a new location,” Dennison said. “People aren’t used to it yet.”
John Brown Jr., chairman of the Benton County Election Commission, said the volume of early voting surprised him.
“I didn’t think it would be that high,” Brown said. “I would suspect that Election Day is going to be a heavy turnout also. It will be interesting to see what happens with this election. I’ve heard comments both ways on it.”
According to records at the County Clerk’s office, voter turnout in the most recent School District election didn’t approach the rate of early voting for this year’s election.
The Bentonville School District sought a 3.6-mill increase in a special election on April 13, 2010. A total of 6,139 votes were cast as that millage increase was approved by a vote of 3,687 votes in favor of the increase and 2,419 votes against. There were 33 undervotes also recorded. In the 2010 election, a total of 1,929 early votes were counted.
The district’s voters approved the 3.6-mill increase in 2010 to raise for $71.9 million for the construction of an elementary and middle school set to open this summer along with a junior high school that will open for the 2013-14 school year.
Travis Riggs, a School Board member, said after seeing the numbers for the first few days of the early voting period he had pegged the eventual total at somewhere around 4,000. Riggs said supporters of the millage had emphasized getting out the votes for the early voting period so he wasn’t concerned by the heavy turnout.
“If you had asked me that question last week, I’d have said yes,” Riggs said when asked if he was surprised by the turnout. “It’s a very big issue for the community so you would expect a big turnout.”
Riggs said supporters of the millage always took the approach of getting “yes” voters out to the polls. He said a special emphasis was placed on the early voting period for this election because of the timing, with the election falling after the end of the school year.
“I’m reading that to say that all of our ‘yes’ people are getting out to vote,” Riggs said of the early voting turnout.