Over 6 percent of Marksville voters cast early, absentee ballots

With a few hours left for absentee votes to arrive, approximately 6.5 percent of registered voters in Marksville had cast their ballots on the restoration of a 1-cent sales tax on Saturday's ballot.

Bearing in mind the early/absentee statistics may be considerably different than the Election Day results, as of the most recent report there were 204 votes cast out of a total of almost 3,150 registered voters.

Of those voting, 174 were white, 26 were black and four were "other race."

Men cast 99 votes and 105 women had voted.

Democrats were out-voting Republicans, 94-83, with 27 "other/no party" holding the balance of power.

Most of the pre-Election Day votes were cast in person at the Registrar's Office on the 2nd Floor of the parish courthouse in Marksville. There were 121 in-person votes and 83 absentee ballots had arrived by mail.

The 1-cent sales tax is the only item on the ballot in the Saturday election, and one of only a handful in the state being decided on an election date that was rescheduled twice due to the COVID-19 crisis in the state.

The early/absentee voting would indicate an overall voting turnout of 20-30 percent for the proposition, but does not necessarily mean voters will not decide to go to the polls in greater numbers.

Also, while it might be fun to try to use the voter demographics to predict the outcome, you could be just as likely to be right by flipping a coin.

Traditionally it is said that pro-tax voters tend to be black (male and female), female (black and white), and Democrat. Anti-tax voters are more likely to be white men, Republicans and -- at least in this parish -- "other/no party" voters.

Of course, there are those in all of those small groups that differ with the majority in their group.

If the traditional model were to hold true, the election appears to be a coin-toss -- 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent, as this analyst carves the numbers.

That being said, the result will probably be a landslide decision either for or against the proposition.

If you are a registered voter in Marksville, this newspaper encourages you to vote. If you are eligible to register but have not yet registered, we urge you to visit the Registrar of Voters office or take advantage of other voter registration options prior to Oct. 5 deadline for in-person and mail-in registration and Oct. 13 deadline to register online at geauxvote.com to be able to vote in the Nov. 3 election.