Florida’s least populated county, Liberty County, drew the highest percentage of voters in the state and it aims to do even better.
People take voting very seriously in this Panhandle county known more for its vast pine forests and slow-moving rivers, than for crowded beaches.
With just 4,700 registered voters in Liberty County, door-to-door campaigning is routine. As is showing up at the county courthouse where voters and candidates gather on lawn chairs on election night to hear the supervisor call out the vote tallies as the numbers are updated.
But before Supervisor of Elections Grant Conyers did that Tuesday night, he was keeping an eye in Liberty’s participation for mail-in and early voting. The numbers were solid and Conyers had a good feeling the county may have something to be very proud of when the last race was called.
He was right.
“We we were in the top 10 during early voting. But then they really turned out in election day. And then when everybody got off work, they come in, and that last couple hours, they really, really showed up to the polls," he said.
Florida doesn’t typically draw that many to the polls during primaries. For such contests it has about a 26 percent average since 2000.
Liberty County's voter turnout
Liberty county crushed that.
Liberty took the top spot among Florida’s 67 counties with 48% of its voters participating in the primary.
On the local ballot in Liberty there was a county commission race, a school board race and one open seat for a judge. Conyers says these races tend to be a bigger draw for Liberty voters than some of the state-wide races.
“Most people show up for those local for those local races," he said.
Conyers said the county's name doesn’t hurt in fostering civil engagement.
We embrace our our name for sure. We are a very rural county ... most of our county is made up of national forest — Apalachicola National Forest — and it's a very large in land, but very small in in population. So we're tight, we're a tight knit community, and we really rally around things like this," Conyers said.
County with low voter turnout
Drawing the least percentage of participants was Osceola County with 18% voter participation.
Here's a breakdown on where Southwest Florida communities ranked in the state:
No. 16 — Glades — 34.63%
No.19 — Sarasota — 33.27%
No. 33 — Lee — 28.58%
No. 38 — Highlands —27.30%
No. 45 — Charlotte —26.72%
No. 47 — Hendry — 26.41%
No. 48 — Collier —26.38%
No. 59 — Okeechobee — 22.56%
No. 62 —DeSoto —21.53%
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