Morgan County Primary Turnout Expected Low as Participation Under 30 Percent

About 95 voters had cast early ballots in Morgan County as of Feb. 26, WLDS reporter Benjamin Cox wrote, a total WLDS described as “representing less than one-half of one percent of registered voters in the county” ahead of the March 17, 2026 General Primary. WLDS said early voting began Feb. 5 and that extended early voting hours will be available this Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon at the Morgan County Courthouse.

WLDS places the county’s primary participation in a multi-year decline, noting that “Primary voter turnout in Morgan County has remained below 30 percent in every election cycle since 2018.” WLDS listed the year-by-year primary figures as just under 29 percent in 2018, just over 20 percent in 2020, just under 19 percent in 2022 and a slight rebound to just over 20 percent in 2024.

The WLDS coverage also documents shifting partisan shares inside those low-turnout primaries. In 2018 WLDS said “For every 4 Republican ballots pulled, there was just one Democrat ballot pulled.” WLDS reported the 2020 primary was closer, with “Republicans making up about 59 percent of primary voters and Democrats about 41 percent,” but said Republican participation returned to a roughly 4-to-1 advantage in 2022 and “the split has remained that way ever since.”

Not every outlet’s Morgan County figures match WLDS’s trend. The Fort Morgan Times quoted Morgan County Clerk and Recorder Kevin Strauch on June 26, 2024 saying “the voting turnout was low for the Primary Election. It was an average turnout, with 32.10% of voters turning in their ballots.” Strauch told the Fort Morgan Times the county had “17,629 active voters, and 5,659 voters cast their ballots,” that there were “approximately 40 total in-person voters” and that “there are 50 – 60 outstanding votes remaining.” The Fort Morgan Times also recorded that its unofficial results posted after polls closed at 7 p.m., and that “The Election Canvas Board will verify the final results, and the official results will be reported next Friday.”

A separate Morgan County — Morgan County, West Virginia — showed much higher early participation in the 2024 general election. The Morgan Messenger reported that early voting from Oct. 23 through Nov. 2 produced 3,810 early ballots out of 13,921 registered voters according to the West Virginia Secretary of State’s October report, roughly 27 percent. The Morgan Messenger published the county party registration totals as 7,126 Republicans, 4,362 No Party, 2,012 Democrats, 134 Libertarians, 55 Mountain Party and 232 other across the county’s 13 precincts.

Academic analysis focused on Ohio counties adds further nuance. The Wallis Rochester / Econweb UMD excerpt reports registration in its sample as 43.1 percent Independent, 30.4 percent Democrats and 26.5 percent Republicans, and explicitly notes the study’s Morgan County data refer to Ohio and that registration files for that county were missing from the authors’ Secretary of State extract. The academic work estimates the turnout effect of additional early voting days at between 0.0549 and 0.2411 percentage points per extra day under different models, and states that “the places which expanded early voting hours were Republican counties and the contracting areas were white.”

Local administrators and these outlets together highlight a fact voters and candidates will see on March 17: unless early participation increases from the roughly 95 ballots WLDS recorded to date, the county’s primary turnout is likely to remain well under 30 percent as it has in recent cycles.