County votes with state on Santorum

Johnson County voters fell in sync with Tennesseans across the state as they cast their ballots in the Presidential Preference Primary held this past week. With 19.90 percent or 2,085 of the county’s registered voters turning out at the polls, including absentee and early voting totals, Johnson Countians voted 41.35 percent for presidential hopeful Rick Santorum.
In Johnson County, Santorum received 818 votes to Mitt Romney’s 487, followed by 479 for Newt Gingrich and 155 for Ron Paul. Statewide, Santorum received 37 percent of the vote, with Romney taking 28 percent of the ballots as Gingrich ran slightly behind with 24 percent. Ron Paul received nine percent. Santorum carried 91 of Tennessee’s 95 counties while Romney took three and Gingrich one.
Tennessee is not a winner-take-all state in the quest to reach the magic number of 1,144 delegates needed to receive the Republican presidential nomination. The delegates in Tennessee are divided proportionally with Santorum receiving the lion’s share of 27 delegates.
This was the first election in which Tennesseans were required to show identification before casting their ballot. “It was a very smooth election with no problems with voter identification, “ said Mike Long, Deputy Administrator of Elections for Johnson County. If voters forgot their photo identification, they were allowed to cast a provisional ballot and return later with the required documents. According to Long, there was only one provisional ballot in the county and just 16 across the state.
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