The General Election is over, and the residents of Omaha have made their choices for Mayor and City Council. Although official numbers have not be finalized, the election cycle is over...for now.
Douglas County Election Commissioner Brian Kruse tells NewsRadio 1110 KFAB that more people than expected went to the polls on Tuesday. "It's gonna be real close to 35 percent. It's gonna be like 34.75 percent, somewhere right in there."
Kruse said he's encouraged that voter turnout yesterday surpassed his prediction of 31 percent, and hopes this gets more people to vote in the next election. "These are the elections that affect your everyday lives. So hopefully, because of the stronger turnout we had than I predicted, this will motivate more people to really pay attention."
The commissioner says although he was pleased with the turnout, he was disappointed that many early ballots were not returned. "Unfortunately it was somewhere about 2,000, give or take a few, of those early voting ballots that were sent out that were not returned."
For now, Kruse says he and his staff can breathe a little easier now that the 2017 election cycle is over, but they will be hard at work preparing for the 2018 election season.