Some MD Eastern Shore counties expect high voter turnout for election

With the presidential election coming up November 8th, voters have just under a month to complete their registration.

Wicomico County Board of Elections Director Anthony Gutierrez says that’s more than enough time to register, “Registration doesn’t close until October 18th so there’s plenty of time if someone’s not registered or need to make changes now is a great time to do it.”

There are just over 100,000 people in Wicomico County as of July 1, 2015, according to the US Census Bureau. As of last week, there were just under 60,000 registered voters in Wicomico County, so even though some residents like children cannot register to vote, there are still a lot of eligible voters not registered.

Likewise, in neighboring Dorchester County, just over 22,000 people are registered. That’s just under 50 percent of the county population. But part of the issue is registered voters aren’t all actually voting.

“We still have a ways to go for that so we want to make we want to cut the difference between for the people that show up and the people that are registered so we will beat that,” says Dorchester Election Director Gwendolyn Dales.

In the 2012 presidential election, Dorchester County had a 71 percent voter turnout. and in Wicomico County 75 percent. Dales says those percentages are actually pretty good and she believes its due to the outpouring of passionate voters, similar to this years election.

“I think this is another election where people are very very involved and people have very strong opinions, so I think we are going to mimic that and see a good turnout,” says Dales.