Watkinsville Mayoral Race Boosted Turnout for Oconee County Education Tax, Precinct Analysis Shows

The mayoral race in Watkinsville produced a higher voter turnout for Oconee County’s Educational Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum than would have been the case without it, an analysis of precinct votes for the Nov. 8 election indicates.

Overall, 10.1 percent of the county’s eligible voters cast a ballot on the education tax, putting the turnout just behind the 10.2 percent figure when the county voted on a general SPLOST issue in November of 2003. That year, as this, no other county-wide or state issues were on the ballot.

In the City Hall precinct, where 75.6 percent of the registered voters also were eligible to vote in the mayoral race, 15.9 percent of the registered voters in the precinct cast a ballot for the education tax. That was the highest turnout rate for the E-SPLOST ballot in any of the county’s 13 precincts.

In the Annex precinct, where 36.2 of the registered voters were eligible to vote for the Watkinsville mayoral race, 11.3 percent of the precinct’s eligible voters cast a ballot on the school issue. That was the third-highest turnout rate, behind City Hall and Colham Ferry.

The , with 71.4 percent of the 2,305 voters who went to the polls favoring it.

For more information on turnout and voting by precinct for the Nov. 8 election, go to Oconee County Observations.