With the election just one day away, Adair County has counted a total of 15,242 registered voters — nearly 900 more than it had at the time of the 2012 election, according to the Adair County Clerk’s office. Stephanie Fleming, Communication Director for Missouri’s Secretary of State, provided the registered voter count from prior elections for comparison.
According to Fleming’s data, the same cannot be said for the 2008 election, which resulted in an extra 2,000 voters by comparison. It would seem the 2016 election hasn’t managed to bring in as many new Adair County voters as the race between Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008.
A campus-wide voter registration drive by the Student Senate drew in 250 new voters during the weekends of Sept. 21-23 and Sept. 28-30. Junior Keaton Leppanen, Student Affairs Chair, coordinated the event along with the support of the College Democrats, College Republicans, and Students for a Democratic Society.
“I had no idea going into it how many people we were going to register — how many people were going to sign up at all, so I was very happy with the turnout.” Leppanen says.
250 newly registered voters account for 3 percent of Truman State University’s campus, which could be a significant weight for either party Nov. 8. When asked about the overall attitudes among voters, Leppanen declined to comment, saying the nature of the event aimed to be as nonpartisan as possible.