Our election commission, led by administrator Susan Harrison, do an unbelievable job to putting the whole process together. Everything has to go right every time and that's no small accomplishment.

I know there were long lines and long waits at most polls on Tuesday but that had nothing to do with the work on the election commission. It had a lot more to do with the painfully long ballot with more than 180 delegates listed. Unfortunately, this is just part of the presidential preference primary election process. Also the waits and lines could have been mostly avoided if more voters had taken advantage the 11 days of early voting. But when it was all said and done, everything went pretty well and if some had to take a little time to cast their ballot, that's OK too. That's a minor inconvenience when you consider all the blood and treasurer it has taken through out the years to give us that right.

To Ms. Harrison her staff and the election commission, we do appreciate your hard work and dedication to the cause. Job well done.

A few facts from this election.

12,492 Loudon Countians cast a ballot in this election. 5,395 voted early with 7,097 voting on election day. This is a new record for a presidential primary. However, Loudon County has approximately 33,000 registered voters. That means about 37% voted but 63% did not. One third decided for two thirds.

Of the 12,492 votes cast, only 1,738 Loudon Countians voted in the democrat primary. That should make you proud of your county. Maybe some day no one will vote democrat. 1,026 voted for Hillary Clinton 638 voted for Bernie Sanders.

What is under vote? An under vote is the number of voters that went to the polls but for some unknown reason, they didn't bother to vote in one or more of the races they were entitled to vote in. In this election, not counting all those delegates, republican voters had two races to vote in, the presidential race and the Loudon County Property Assessor's race. 5,257 voted for Mike Campbell, 2,728 voted for Larry Brown and 2,761 voters who voted in the presidential race did not bother to vote in the assessor's race. You could say Mr. Brown came in third in a two man race with the under vote being larger than Mr. Browns vote. The under vote was also larger than the difference between the two candidates. Enough to have changed the outcome of the race.

And by the way, Mr. Campbell and Mr. Brown, let's get all those signs up ASAP.

On to August. The next election coming up will be the county general election and the state primary in August. On the local level, the big contest in August will be school board race with 6 of the 10 seats on the ballot. Now that the March election is over we'll be taking a closer look at the school board race, the candidates and their records.

Stay tuned.