Early voting totals in Tennessee lowest since 2008

About 280,000 Tennesseans participated in this year’s 14-day early voting period — far below the number of people who cast ballots in recent election cycles in similar early voting periods.

Only 281,278 people — including 178,915 Republicans and 89,534 Democrats — participated in early voting, which ended Saturday, for Thursday's primary.

Although that total pales in comparison to early voting totals during the last two election cycles, those races were different given that they included primary races for several statewide and federal campaigns.

In 2014, when the primary race included elections for governor and a U.S. Senate seat, in addition to a contentious Supreme Court retention race, 564,000 people participated in early voting. That included nearly 354,200 Republicans and 165,000 Democrats.

Early voting in this year’s election was down compared with 2014 in every one of Tennessee’s 95 counties.

In 2012, about 316,700 people cast ballots during early voting. That election involved a primary race for the U.S. Senate seat held by Bob Corker and came during a presidential election year.

This year’s early voting totals are actually the lowest statewide since 2008 — another year with a presidential election — when 206,000 people voted in the August primary.

This year, a handful of Middle Tennessee counties had their lowest participation from early voters in years. Residents in Robertson and Sumner counties cast the fewest number of ballots during early voting since 2008.

Other counties, such as Williamson and Davidson, actually had higher early vote totals this year than in 2012.

Williamson early voting participation slightly declines

The dip in early voting participation was hardly contained to Middle Tennessee.

In the eastern part of the state, voters in Anderson County cast their lowest early voting ballots since 2008, which also was the case in several West Tennessee counties, including Shelby and Fayette.

Secretary of State Tre Hargett said although he would like to have seen higher turnout, this year’s early voting totals fall in line with historical data.

But this year’s totals indicate the state had the third fewest number of participants in early voting during a fall primary in the past 14 years.

This year’s early voting totals come five months after a record number of people — 385,000 — cast early ballots before Tennessee’s March 1 presidential primary.

Tennessee crushes early voting record for presidential primary

Thursday’s primary election includes races for Congress, statehouse, Metro Council and school board.

Reach Joel Ebert at 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.