Northwest Iowa — Voters in the four county area comprised of O’Brien, Osceola, Sioux and Lyon counties apparently stayed away from the polls in droves during Tuesday’s primary election. Just 9,659 people cast their ballot in the four county area, out of 42,816 registered voters. That means that only 22.56% of those eligible cast a ballot on Tuesday.
In O’Brien County, 30.41% of registered voters cast their ballot, that’s 3,012 people out of an eligible 9,905. And O’Brien County had the best voter turnout of any of the four adjacent counties.
Sioux County came in second, with 25.07% of those eligible voting, that’s 5,123 out of an eligible 20,431 Sioux County residents.
Osceola County saw 17.72% of their eligible electorate go to the polls, with 721 out of the 4,068 eligible voters casting ballots.
Lyon County finished the day with a measly 9.55% voter turnout, or 803 ballots cast out of the county’s 8,412 eligible voters.
Part of the difference in voter turnout is most likely due to the number of contested races in each county. Republicans in all four counties saw a contested race for the U.S. House of Representatives, and Democrats in all four counties selected from four candidates to face Chuck Grassley in November.
Beyond that, it seems the counties with the highest number of contested races at the county level saw the greatest number of voters turn out to make their preferences known.
