Janet Cherry greets voters at the NWACC voting center on Tuesday, Nov. 5./Photo by Nadia Moutria

By Genesis Guerra and Fernanda Sanchez

In Arkansas the comparison between voter turnout during the last election and this year’s 2024 election voter turnout results have been quite similar to 2020, according to news source THV.11.com.

Benton County voter turnout was slightly higher than 67% with 129,349 of the county’s 192,224 registered voters casting ballots last night. The bulk of Benton County ballots (101,790 early votes and 2,850 absentee voters) were cast in the days leading up to the election.

Washington County voter turnout approached 67% of registered voters with 97,751 of the county’s 146,823 registered voters casting ballots.

In contrast to those numbers, turnout in the March 5 primaries, local issues, and judicial balloting was less than 20% with 18.73% of Benton County’s then 181,192.

The Benton County number of registered voters rose approximately 11,000 voters during the period from the March 5 primaries to the Nov. 5 general election.

NWACC’s Student Government Association may have assisted with some of that increase by hosting a voter registration drive in September.

Ralph Burns, Outreach Coordinator for the Arkansas Secretary of State Elections Division who assisted SGA during the voter registration drive on NWACC’s campus, said at the time that the Arkansas Secretary of State is “really pushing to get more people registered.” Their efforts include going out to business expos, county fairs, and college campuses—most recently in Northwest Arkansas, the University of Arkansas, John Brown University, and NWACC—to get people registered. Burns said back in September that in recent days the Elections Divisions office in Little Rock had received tens of thousands of applications delivered to them, which Burns says is normal for this time of year.

Benton County continued a tradition of having a voting center open on the NWACC campus on Tuesday. Several college students took advantage of the proximity of a polling site to cast their ballots.

Janet Cherry, one of the poll workers at Walmart Auditorium inside the Shewmaker Center for Workforce Technologies, helped voters with the process and presented stickers to those who had completed casting their ballot.

Cherry noted that while national ballot questions capture attention, local elections are important. For her, one way to be more knowledgeable has been working at the polling place. “Being a poll worker is a fabulous way to learn about state issues,” she said.

Chelsea Castillo and Jaden Burgett contributed to this report.