Cochise County’s elections director, Tom Schelling, said that Tuesday’s primary election was “way lighter than expected.”

The 14,139 number of people voting was 20.98 percent of the 67,383 people registered in the county.

Expecting a call for at least 20,000 early ballots, county officials were surprised that only 7,000 were requested and slightly more than 5,000 were returned as of Tuesday afternoon, Schelling said.

As for people going to the polls on primary day, Schelling said even those numbers are disappointing.

After seven hours of the polls being open, only 59 people had voted at Sierra Vista’s Precinct 36 at the First Baptist Church on south Seventh Street.

During a telephone interview around 2 p.m. Tuesday, Schelling said the turnout throughout the county at that time was “light, light, light.”

Douglas experineced low turnout as well.

Even though the presidential preference vote had a heavier turnout, he said he expected the primary would be more than it appears to be in light of council races in Bisbee, Sierra Vista and Tombstone and a recall in Benson.

The only bright spot from early reports, Schelling said, was the council election in Tombstone, which had more than 100 people showing up by 1 p.m.

According to The Associated Press, turnout throughout the state was light.

One factor was that many of the races were uncontested.

In Cochise County, there were a number of uncontested races, with only one candidate for each party or only one candidate total for a contest.

Statewide, many at the polls in the early going were retirees. Some voters cited a sense of civic responsibility. Some pointed to party loyalty; others said they just liked casting their votes in person.

“It’s an inexact science, to be sure,” Deputy Secretary of State Kevin Tyne said to The Associated Press of estimating turnout. But he adhered to the 30 percent forecast by Secretary of State Jan Brewer as probably more realistic. In 2004, it was about 25 percent.

According to the most recent figures put out by the Arizona Secretary of State, there are 67,354 registered voters in Cochise County, of which:

• 26,246 are Republicans.

• 22,460 are Democrats.

• 257 are Libertarians.

• 122 are members of the Green Party.

• 18,269 are others, who fall into the general category of Independents.

Statewide registration shows there are 1,061,591 Republicans, 957,895 Democrats, 17,278 Libertarians, 3,467 Green Party and 759,159 others, for a total of 2,799,390.

Based on those figures, as far as the state’s totals are concerned, the Independents with 27.12 percent of the total will be major players when compared to the Republican total of 37.92 percent and the Democrats 34.22 percent.

Although some early ballots have been counted, the county elections director said more will have to be counted today and later as they are received through the mail.

With the Labor Day holiday and no mail delivered on Monday, Schelling said Tuesday’s deliveries and what may come in today to the Cochise County Recorder’s Office, will have to be counted.

That means Tuesday results are not final, he said. The canvass by the Cochise County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to be done at 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 11.