Starke County saw a historic voter turn out of more than 60 percent in the 2020 General Election, according to Starke County Clerk Bernadette Manuel.
About thirty percent of Starke County’s voting population cast their ballot early; 1,047 voters turned in a paper absentee ballot and 4,147 residents voted early in person, for a total of 5,194 absentee ballots cast.
When it comes to Election Day voters, 5,254 Starke County residents turned up at the polls to cast their ballot. Altogether, Starke County’s public count for the 2020 General Election was 10,448 voters.
Republican candidates came out on top in many of Starke County’s contested local races. The three open county council – at large seats will be filled by Republicans Don Binkley, Kay Gudeman, and Todd Leinbach.
Additionally, the Starke County Treasurer’s race was won by Republican candidate Lauri Manns Venckus who was running against Democratic candidate Monica Miller and Republican candidate Mark Gourley beat Democrat Bradley Hazelton for the County Commissioner – District 1 seat.
There were also two contested school board races that local voters had a say in. Three candidates, Annette Ferch, Corey (Ben) Lady, Lee Nagai, were vying for two Oregon-Davis School Board – at large seats. Nagai and Lady will be filling those seats.
For the open Culver School Board – District 5 seat, Karen Lee received about 79 percent of the vote, beating out J.D. Uebler in Starke County’s race.
The Starke County election board will need to verify these results in the coming weeks. Provisional ballots will be reviewed on Friday, November 13. You can find a copy of the results with the final vote totals on the Election Central tab on wkvi.com.
