McCain wins Jersey County; over 60 percent of voters cast ballots Tuesday
Staff Report
JERSEYVILLE – Despite Barack Obama winning the presidential election with 349 electorial votes, the Illinois senator did not win Jersey County.

Jersey County voters went to the polls Tuesday and showed their support in Senator John McCain by casting 5,320 votes to Obama’s 5,036.

But the big winner in this year’s election was the county which showed 62 percent of the voters turning out to vote.

“This was the biggest voter turnout in Jersey County in recent history,” Jersey County Clerk Steve Pohlman said.

Of the 17,113 registered voters, 10,709 either went to the polls Tuesday, voted early or by absentee.

Pohlman said there were some problems on Tuesday, mainly due to voter registrations which were done through the State of Illinois Driver’s License Facility.

“The voting registrations changes that were made there did not get to us in a timely fashion,” he said.

Not only did Jersey County have problems but Macoupin and Calhoun and Pohlman said he suspects others around the state did as well.

The state, when they did those registrations, he said, did not get them to the counties in time.

“Hundreds of people who registered this way were not on our lists,” he said. “But no one was turned away for this unless there were other problems with their registration.”

Voters also retained State’s Attorney Ben Goetten to another four year term with 6,781 to challenger Donald R. Schaaf, jr.’s 3,134.

The State’s Attorney’s race was the only contested election in the county.

Incumbants Charles E. Huebener (Circuit Clerk) and Larry Alexander (Coroner) were each retained.

For the Jersey County Board, Ken Breden and Donna Moore were each re-elected for Board District 1, Pamela Heitzig and newcomer Jerry Wittman for Board District 2, Mike Wendle in Board District 3 and Donald R. Little for Board District 4.

The question of whether the state should hold a constitutional convention was defeated by a large margin 6,555 to 2,055.

ELECTION NIGHT - JCHS students, many from the A.P. history class taught by Ben Gracey, pictured below (back), watched election returns at the JCHS cafeteria Tuesday night. Also there were “look alikes” of of the Republican candidates.
Aaron Ottis/thejcstar.com