Crawford County Voter Turnout 34 Percent

Perhaps bolstered by the highly-publicized Proposition A, voter turnout in Crawford County exceeded the state average Tuesday.

According to Crawford County Clerk John Martin, turnout was 34.13 percent. Missouri Secretary of State John Ashcroft’s office said 33.5 percent of all Missourians voted in the primary.

Ashcroft reported that turnout was at 25 percent in 2014 and 2016 primaries.

Unofficial totals show that roughly 4.1 million registered voters cast a ballot in Tuesday’s primary.

“While more voters went to the polls yesterday, there are still many who did not,” Ashcroft said in a press release.

Voters may still register by Oct. 10 to vote in the Nov. 6 election. 

Missouri was being watched carefully around the nation as voters decided the fate of Prop A, which would have adopted Senate Bill 19, dubbed the right-to-work bill.

Voters delivered a crushing blow to Prop A, with 65 percent voting against it. 

In Crawford County, voters were even more opposed. Nearly 70 percent voted “no.” If passed, Prop A would have officially made Missouri the 28th right-to-work state in the nation.

Senate Bill 19 was one of former Gov. Eric Greitens’ signature accomplishments in his first year. The bill repeatedly stalled after the legislature was unable to override a veto from former Gov. Jay Nixon. 

With control of the house, senate and governor’s mansion, Senate Bill 19 was signed into law by February 2017.

Right-to-work as it is called allows employees to be represented without paying union dues. 

Pro-labor backers collected more than 310,000 petition signatures as a response to the bill, putting it on hold for a statewide vote.

On the second-to-last day of the 2018 spring session, the Missouri House of Representatives voted 96-47 to move the date of the vote to August. Republicans in the House argued that the issue needed to be decided sooner since businesses were waiting on the results.