Montague County saw a strong voter turnout for Tuesday’s party primaries with 33.30 percent of 4,479 of its 13,450 registered voters cast ballots.
County Elections Administrator Ginger Wall said while there were a few long lines during the busiest times primarily after 5 p.m., the new electronic voting machines ran well.
“At the busiest locations like the Bowie library and Bible Baptist they had some longer wait times. Also it was a longer ballot with those 10 propositions which took time to read causing a bit of a back-up,” said Wall.
While voters had to choose their party of preference for the primary, the largest percentage of voters went Republican, many in order to have a say in the only two county contested races on that ballot. Winners of the primary will now either go to the general election ballot in November or face a May 26 runoff election.
In the hotly contested election for 97th District Attorney, incumbent Casey Polhemus, Bowie, won her second full term after a tough challenge from William Knowlton, Henrietta. Polhemus received 4,872 votes to Knowlton’s 4,113 across Montague, Archer and Clay Counties.

Read the full story on the two contested local races and the pending runoffs in your weekend Bowie News.