Carroll County Election Results 2012

Follow this article throughout the day as your local Patch editor will be out on the street updating from polling places and political headquarters, all the way up until results come in this evening.

Update 11 p.m. - Board of Education

According to the Maryland Board of Elections website, all 35 Carroll County precincts have reported with Jim Doolan and Jennifer Seidel coming away with the most votes.

Update 10:15 p.m. - Board of Education

According to the Maryland State Elections website, Jennifer Seidel and Jim Doolan are are in the lead for school board seats. There are two seats to be filled on the board of education and four candidates vying for those seats. As of 10:11, the results are as follows:

Update 9 p.m.

The Democratic party headquarters on Liberty Street in Westminster had a crowd of about 40 as of 8 p.m. Corynne Courpas, treasurer of the Carroll County Democratic Central Committee said the feeling there tonight is "cautiously optimistic" referring to the presidential election.

She said they are feeling a little more confident about the state referendum issues.

A phone bank set up at the Democratic party headquarters made 2,800 calls today to voters in Virginia and over 4,000 calls this weekend.

The Republican party headquarters also had a healthy crowd Tuesday night. Republican Central Committee Chair Larry Helminiak said that he is disappointed in the direction the referendum issues seem to be going, primarily same sex marriage and the Dream Act.

County commissioners Doug Howard, Haven Shoemaker and Richard Rothschild were at the Republican headquarters. Rothschild said he was at the polls much of the day and thought the voter turnout was strong but not as strong as he would have liked to have seen.

"It was good, but I don't know if it was good enough," Rothschild said.

Update 5 p.m.

The precinct at Liberty High School has been busy all day Chief Election Judge Tom Hutchinson said.

As of 4:30 p.m, approximately 53 percent of registered voters in this precinct had voted according to Hutchinson.

Hutchinson said that there was a long line when the polls opened at 7 a.m. and the initial line of people had about a 45 minute wait. But he said everything had run smoothly and the lines quickly at Liberty for the remainder of the day.

Hutchinson said that in his opinion, it is the referendum issues that are bringing people out.

Update 3 p.m.

The precinct at West Middle School has had a consistent stream of voters since the doors opened at 7 a.m. according to Chief Election Judge Becky Fisher. 

She said that the line has been up to 80 people deep although that no one had waited more than half an hour as of noon. 

Voter John Muhl said he was prepared to wait for some amount of time to vote, although with his two-year-old in tow he said he could only wait as long as she would allow for it. 

Muhl said his primary interest in voting was to weigh in on the presidential election. He said there were no particular state issues that he was focused on. 

Voter Roger Groomes said he just wouldn't miss a chance to exercise his right to vote. 

Update 1:30 p.m.

The Republican headquarters on Baltimore Blvd (Rt. 140) is a ghost town. Dave Jones is holding down the office and said that everyone is out working the polls. He said he has heard that the polls were very busy early in the day. He is coordinating rides for voters who need to get to the polls. 

Update 12:30 p.m.

According to chief election judge Deni Krug at the precinct at Cranberry Station Elementary school, voter traffic has been steady. A smaller precinct with just 1,581 registered voters, Krug said there are a lot of seniors voting at Cranberry Station.  As of 11:30 a.m., Krug said they had seen a 22 percent turnout.

Voter Sidney Sweet said she "likes Barrack because he looks like me." Sweet said it is important to her to have representation by someone who understands what it is like to be an African American. 

Sweet, who grew up in Carroll County and attended McDaniel College, said that it hasn't been so easy to decide on the referendum issues. 

"I have homosexual friends but I don't think it should be 2 guys getting married," Sweet said. "I'm a Christian. I think God made man and woman for a reason."

Update 11 a.m.

The precinct at Sandymount Elementary School in Finksburg has seen a lot of traffic so far today, according to Doris Leopold, a chief election judge working at the Sandymount polls. 

Leopold said that there was a long line of people waiting to vote at 7 a.m. when they opened the doors and 281 ballots cast before 8 a.m. 

Leopold said she has been working at elections since the 1970's. She said she has worked in the same precinct for all that time, and today her son and her husband are both working the polls with her as judges. 

As of 10:30 a.m., 1,010 ballots had been cast from Sandymount, Leopold said; there are around 4,000 people registered to vote at that location. 

"We will get really busy at lunch and again between 4 and 7 p.m.," Leopold said. "Hopefully we won't get a lot of people showing up one minute before 8, but whoever is in line at 8 will get to vote." 

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Carroll County is known to be a conservative Republican county in a blue state. In 2008 voters proved that to be true once again. In the 2008 general election, 71 percent of Carroll County voters voted for Ehrlich/Kane while 26 percent of voters voted for O'Malley/Brown. Sixty-five percent of Carroll voters voted for Republican William Henry Campbell for Comptroller (Democrat Franchot won) and 62 percent voted for Republican Eric Wargotz for Senate (Barbara Mikulski won).

According to the Carroll County Board of Elections, in the 2008 presidential election, there were 105,449 registered voters in Carroll County. Approximately 80 percent of those registered voters--or 85,051 people--cast a ballot in one of Carroll County's 49 voting precincts. Thirty-three percent of Carroll County voters voted for Obama/Biden and and 64 percent voted for McCain/Palin.

This table will be updated.