Bradenton Area Voter Turnout 'Fantastic' This Year

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — The Manatee County Supervisor of Elections Mike Bennett said there was a “fantastic turnout” among voters in the county for the general election. This year, 218,180 voters – or 79.77 percent of eligible voters – cast their ballot. There are 273,427 eligible voters in Manatee.

“We basically had the highest turnout in the history of Manatee County that we could go back and find,” he said.

The second highest turnout was in 1992, when the county saw a voter turnout of 79.45 percent.

“We just creeped by that,” Bennett said.

Breaking down the turnout, 101,516 votes were cast by Republicans, 66,526 by Democrats and 50,066 by Independents and those in other parties.

“It was a fantastic turnout. You certainly have got to give credit to the political parties. They worked extremely hard, both of them did,” he said.

Other than some “aggressive campaigning,” for the most part Election Day was peaceful, he added. He credits his staff with the day running smoothly.

Bennett was also re-elected as Supervisor of Elections this year. His goals moving forward are to “continue to find early voting sites,” he said. “We want to continue to expand that vote by mail. It worked fantastic. People all over did vote by mail. They loved it.”