Perry County voters turned out in record numbers Tuesday, topping 70 percent, fueled by the presidential race between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden, along with a hotly contested gubernatorial race and, locally, a two-person tilt for an open seat on the county commission.
All told, 9,468 of Perry County’s 13,033 registered voters — 72.65 percent — cast a ballot in most, if not every contested race.
“It’s mind-boggling,” said Perry County Clerk Jared Kutz, who last week predicted a turnout of 73 percent. “I mean, we broke our previous record turnout, which was set in 2016. We had 8,870 votes cast officially in 2016. Unofficially tonight, we had 9,468. That is nearly 600 votes more than four years ago. We’re over 13,000 voters now — about a 500-voter increase — so our percentage went up too, one of the highest percentage turnouts we’ve ever had in Perry County.”
While numbers at the polls were higher than expected, so too were the number of absentee voters, topping the total from 2016’s general election by a more than respectable margin.
“Unofficially, as of Election Day in 2016, we had, I think, 798 [absentee ballots],” Kutz said. “And officially at the close of everything, we had 810. This year, we more than doubled that.”
Tuesday’s unofficial results included 1,660 absentee ballots, a number higher than any precinct total, even topping the largest precinct in the county — the newly combined P-1 and P-4 precinct — by 278 ballots.
Kutz said he had complete confidence that the reason for the increase in absentee voting was easy to pin down.
“I don’t think it’s any other reason than the [COVID-19 pandemic] and the voter education that went about because of the pandemic and because of media and education of the voters of the voting options available to them,” Kutz said.
Also of note, of the total absentee ballots cast, 1,313 were cast in-person at the clerk’s office, leaving only a few hundred in the hands of the post office.
“I am very thankful to Connie [Terbrak] and the team at the Perryville Post Office for the extra efforts they made to make sure that ballots in Perry County that were coming to my office and going out to people were from the county got those ballots,” Kutz said.
Those extra efforts didn’t just come the local post office. Kutz also shared a story regarding an errant ballot from Perry County that was held up in Kansas City.
“The United States Post Office sent an employee from St. Louis to Kansas City to get a ballot,” Kutz said. “They brought it back to St. Louis and then that single ballot came to Perryville last night and we received it. That’s the kind of lengths that the United States post office went to, and that was for one ballot.”
As usual, Kutz also had plenty of praise for his team of election workers.
“My judges were phenomenal yesterday,” Kutz said. “They were awesome. They went out there, they did their deal, and they did it professionally. I didn’t have one complaint all day about having to wait long to vote.”
Overall, Republican candidates received the vast majority of votes in the county — more than 80 percent in many races — led by Trump, who garnered 80.96 percent (7,634) of the 9,429 votes cast. Biden was a distant second, finishing with 1,661 votes (17.62 percent), the largest number of votes garnered by any Democratic candidate.
Statewide, Trump garnered 1,711,848 votes (56.826 percent), compared to Biden’s total of 1,242,851 (41.257). The winner likely won’t be known for several days as many states are still counting ballots, but as of noon Wednesday, the Associated Press showed Biden with a modest lead in both the popular vote and the Electoral College, leading Trump by two percentage points with 50.2 percent, or 70,097,055 votes and 238 electoral votes. Trump had 67,347,614 votes, or 48.2 percent.
In the only contested local race, Republican Keith Hoehn topped Ronald “Rocky” Schumer for the District 2 county commission seat that will be vacated by retiring Associate Commissioner Jim Sutterer, finishing with 3,035 votes while Schumer, who ran as an independent, ended with 1,545.
“I did not expect that, but I’ll sure take it,” Hoehn said. “It’s no secret that Perry County is a Republican county. I just thank everybody [that voted for me]. It’s been one heck of a journey, I’ll tell you that.”
Hoehn also said that he enjoyed campaigning, even if he didn’t get to see everyone he wanted to.
“I had pretty good vibes on the whole thing from door knocking and talking to people, and I barely even got out into the county,” Hoehn said. “It was mainly in Perryville here where I’ve been for probably six weeks, just walking around. I thought I knew a lot of people, but I’ve met some I have met some amazing people along the way that I did not know.”
Schumer, who chose to run as an independent to avoid an eight-person race in the August primary, chalked up the loss to party loyalty.
“I feel like I did everything possible,” Schumer said. “I hit 98 percent of the houses. We went on weekends from August till November. I feel like I’ve done everything possible that I could do to win, but I feel like it went party lines and followed Republican straight through.
“I wish Keith the best of luck and we’ll see what happens in four years.”
In statewide races, Gov. Mike Parson, looking for his first full term after taking over for former governor Eric Greitens, who resigned in 2018, collected 7,573 votes in Perry County, finishing with 81.11 percent of the vote.
Challenger Nicole Galloway, who currently serves as state auditor and is the only Democrat holding a statewide office, finished with 1,627 votes, or 17.43 percent.
Statewide, Parson defeated Galloway by nearly 500,00 votes —1,713,152-1,216,192 — claiming 57.171 percent of the 2,996,524 votes cast in the state.
In the state legislature, incumbent state Rep. Rick Francis of Perryville, a Republican, led Perry County with 84.97 percent of the vote, and topped Democrat Mike Lindley by an even larger margin —14,727-2,731, or 84.357 percent — to retain his seat in the 145th District.
Rep. Holly Rehder of Sikeston, also a Republican, was seeking the District 27 seat previously held by a term-limited Wayne Wallingford.
In Perry County, Rehder easily topped Democrat Donnie Owens 7,537-1,659, and won the seat with a total of 63,575 votes to Owens’ 19,109.
In other statewide races, Mike Kehoe was re-elected as lieutenant governor, Jay Ashcroft as secretary of state, Scott Fitzpatrick as treasurer and Eric Schmitt as attorney general. All are Republicans.
Tuesday’s ballot also featured a pair of constitutional amendements.
Amendment 1, which would have would have extended term limits to include various statewide officials, was defeated by voters, as 51.974 percent of the state voted against the measure. In Perry County, it was 51.15 percent against.
Amendment 3, designed to repeal a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2018 that would have required legislative districts be drawn to ensure partisan fairness, was approved by 66.99 percent of Perry County voters and by 51.017 percent statewide.
Critics of Amendment 3 say it could forgo the use of total population to draw districts and instead exclude all non-voters, specifically children and non-citizens — tilting the political scales toward older, rural areas of the state that tend to vote Republican.
Amendment 3 also included a pair of measures that would reduce the amount gifts legislators could accept from lobbyists by $5 and reduce campaign constibutions by $100.
At stake in the Amendment 3 vote was control of the process that draws 163 Missouri House and 34 state Senate districts that will be used in elections from 2022 to 2030. This year’s election was the last using the districts created in 2011, which has produced a Republican supermajority in the state every election since.
