Political theory and constitutional democracy and social relations and policy junior Esther Chung slips her ballot into a voting machine Tuesday at precinct 15 in West Wilson Hall.
Voter turnout in East Lansing was slightly less than projected, East Lansing City Clerk Nicole Evans said.
Evans said 38 percent of voters registered in East Lansing voted this year, which is down from 45 percent in the last gubernatorial election in 2006.
All tabulations are unofficial until approved by the Board of State Canvassers by Nov. 22, she said.
Evans said she could not distinguish the number of student voters versus East Lansing resident voters, but the voter history report will be compiled and released next week.
The voter history report will composite each voter who cast ballots in precincts in East Lansing.
Evans said she didn’t notice any trends but said fewer numbers might be attributed to people showing up at the wrong precincts. She said the majority of calls from precinct chair’s were about voters in the wrong place.
The primary student voting sites in East Lansing were precincts 1, 13, 14 and 15. All these precincts were located in on-campus buildings.
According to the unofficial results, the student precincts favored Democratic gubernatorial candidate Virg Bernero — with 637 votes cast for the Lansing mayor compared to the 322 for Governor-elect Rick Snyder. Despite the trend among East Lansing voters, Snyder won by 59 percent over Bernero.
Some students, such as construction management sophomore Alex Oakley, decided not to vote in the election because of misinformation.
“I didn’t understand the whole thing about voting here compared to voting at home,” Oakley said.
“I feel bad for not voting, but I really didn’t understand the implication of voting (in East Lansing). I didn’t know if I had to change my permanent address or file my taxes differently if I voted here.”
Ken Silfven, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, said the Secretary of State predicts about 47 percent of registered Michigan voters cast their ballot Tuesday. This estimation is down 5 percent from Land’s original projection of 52 percent.
“We always hope for a larger turnout,” Silfven said.
“All that can be done is to make the voters aware when elections are approaching and understand their rights about voting.”
There could be a difference between the official and unofficial results, but there is only a slight possibility the two sets of results would vary, he said.
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