District 95, are you out there?

Linda A. Moore | Memphis Commercial Appeal

Thus far, early voting numbers in the Tennessee House District 95 special election are stronger than the turnout for the primary, but still show a decided lack of interest in who represents the community in the state legislature.

There have been 1,016 ballots cast between May 26 and June 3 for the district, which includes all of Collierville, parts of Germantown and portions of unincorporated Shelby County. Early voting ends Saturday. Election day is June 15.

Those numbers reflect a 12.4 percent increase over early voting during the same number of days in the primary, but reflect a small percentage of the district's 51,411 registered voters.

"I was going to watch early voting totals to see if I needed to send out more election day equipment. I’m going to go with a resounding no on that one," said Linda Phillips , Shelby County's administrator of elections.

Phillips had hoped for at least a 20 percent turnout for the general election and typically 60-70 percent votes are cast during early voting.

That's not likely this time, she said.

The election is to replace first-term legislator Mark Lovell , a Republican who resigned early in the session amid accusations of sexual harassment. Lovell beat incumbent Curry Todd in a primary that included Todd's arrest for stealing Lovell's campaign signs.

District 95 leans heavily Republican, but with such low voter turnout, this race could flip the district.

"I have seen stranger things happen in small races like this," Phillips said. "It literally depends on who gets their voters out."

Democrat Julie Byrd Ashworth ran unopposed in the primary and since then her campaign has made thousands of in-person contacts with voters.

"We're on the ground every day with the field campaign. We're working to get out the vote for Democrats," Ashworth said.

Republican nominee Kevin Vaughan finished ahead of six candidates in the primary.

"We're employing all the tried and true strategies involving social media, direct mail and phone banks as well as personal, going door to door," Vaughan said.

He hopes it's enough.

Independent Robert Schutt also is hoping he'll be able to get voters to the polls who are tired of the "good 'ol boy" system in the legislature.

"I think, hopefully, we'll see a little higher turnout than in the primary and see that people in District 95 care about who represents them," Schutt said.

Jim Tomasik, a Libertarian who is on the ballot as an independent, could not be reached for comment.

It's a tough time of year for for the election, the candidates all noted, citing the end of the school year, graduations, the Memorial Day holiday, people on vacation and the storm that knocked out electricity for nearly 190,000 utility customers.

"There are lots of factors, but jeez, this person is going to represent them in the state House," Phillips said. "You'd think people might have some interest."

The early voting sites are the Collierville Church of Christ, 575 Shelton Road, and the New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, 7786 Poplar Pike in Germantown.

Polling hours are 3-7 p.m. through Friday and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.



For more information go to shelbyvote.com.