Election commissioners release unofficial results

Voters in Howard County had the chance to weigh in on a pair of local races during Tuesday’s Nebraska Primary Election.

Yet, despite there being races of local note on the ballot, voters still shied away from the polls.

On Tuesday night, just after releasing her unofficial election results at 10:15 p.m., Howard County Election Commissioner Brenda Klanecky reported that voter turnout in the county was at 31.88 percent. Statewide, Nebraska election officials had predicted that participation would be at thirty-five percent.

“I really wasn’t expecting [turnout] to be higher,” said Klanecky during an interview on Tuesday night, “We did have some local races. I could have seen them being a little higher.”

The two local races that had been on the primary ballot had been the race for a pair of seats on the St. Paul City Council and the race for the Republican nomination for the District Two seat on the Howard County Board of Commissioners.

In the city council race, Mark Wilson led the five-candidate field. Wilson received 258 votes. Jerry Woodgate came in second with 193, while Jerry Thompson and incumbent Chuck Schmid earned 134 and 133, respectively.

Rex Galusha, the fifth candidate, received eighty-seven votes.

On the Republican ticket, Kirt Lukasiewicz, Brad Lassen, and Howard Beck were vying for the party’s nomination for November’s General Election. Lukasiewicz won that race with 199 votes. Lassen finished fifty votes behind the winner, with 149, while Beck secured forty-nine votes.

In the race for the District 41 seat in the Nebraska Legislature, Dan McKeon received 525 votes in Howard County and Ethan Clark picked up 457. Nadine Bane finished with 240. McKeon had also earned the largest share of the votes in Greeley County. According to unofficial results released by Greeley County Election Commissioner Mindy Grossart on Tuesday, McKeon secured 186 votes that county. Clark netted 153. Bane finished with ninety.

In Howard County, former President Donald Trump was the favorite on the Republican ticket. Trump won 869 votes. Nikki Haley, whose name appeared on the ballot in Nebraska, earned 141. Twenty people voted for Perry Johnson.

President Joe Biden secured 132 votes in the Democratic primary on Tuesday. Dean Phillips picked up sixty-two votes in that race as well.

In Greeley County, 307 votes were cast for Donald Trump in the Republican Presidential Primary. Haley earned forty-six votes, and Johnson netted four.

On the Democratic ticket, President Joe Biden won forty-six votes and Phillips secured twenty-two.

According to the Nebraska Secretary of State’s website just before midnight, voter turnout in Greeley County was reported at 29.21 percent, with 461 of the county’s 1,578 registered voters participating.