Slow going . . .

It was a slow pace Tuesday morning at the Snow voting house in central Clinton County, with the above photo showing how much activity the Snow election officers had early in the day.

McKinley Guffey, Clayton Brown and Everette Neal are shown in the above photo, while the fourth Snow Election Officer, Toby Staton, was manning the voter registration book, with about the same level of activity.

Voting activity picked up as the day went on, with about 47 percent of the precinct’s voters coming out to vote.

Despite only one local contested race on Tuesday’s Clinton County primary ballot, voters here apparently found plenty of incentive to cast their vote in the Republican primary race between incumbent Jake Staton and challenger, former deputy Circuit Clerk Kathy Stearns.

About 47 percent of the eligible Republican voters cast ballots in that race Tuesday, with Staton handily winning over Stearns by a more than a 2-1 margin. Staton finished Tuesday’s vote tally with 1,977 votes while Stearns garnered 825 votes.

The victory Tuesday for Staton meant that the incumbent, with no Democrat opponent in this fall’s election, has won another six year term as Clinton County’s Circuit Court Clerk.

Staton carried all 13 of the county’s voting precincts, as well as winning the absentee vote total in Tuesday’s primary.

With the exception of the race for the Circuit Court Clerk, Republicans were only voting in a presidential primary that at this point doesn’t seem to matter anyway.

Apparent Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, appeared on the ballot Tuesday along with three other candidates, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Republican voters also had the choice of casting an “Uncommitted” vote that appeared on the ballot.

At this point in the election process, Tuesday’s Kentucky primary voting was basically considered a moot point with Romney having essentially locked up the Republican nomination for President.

Still, Clinton County Republican voters voiced their favor for Romney over the other choices in that primary race. Romney finished Tuesday’s primary here with 1,439 total votes, with the closest other candidate seeking the Republican nomination being Ron Paul with 351 votes. Newt Gingrich finished Tuesday’s voting here with 205 votes, Rick Santorum with 191 and the “Uncommitted” number of local voters totaled 155.

On the other hand, Democrats had even fewer choices to make between candidates appearing on Tuesday’s primary election ballot, with the only name appearing on the ballot in the presidential primary being that of current United States President Barack Obama. Likewise, an “Uncommitted” choice was also available for the few Democrat voters who took the time to cast votes Tuesday.

Obama is also considered to have already locked up the Democratic nomination for President.

Clinton County Democrats seemingly took the chance to voice their displeasure in Obama’s performance, with the current President receiving only 71 votes from local Democrats, while the “Uncommitted” vote total was 89.

The only real choice local Democrat voters were allowed to make Tuesday was between two candidates seeking the party’s nomination for United States Representative in Congress in this 1st Congressional District.

In that race, Charles Kendall Hatchett, a real estate broker from McCracken County, was facing James Buckmaster, a physician from Henderson, Kentucky.

Locally, it was Hatchett who came out in front, with 108 votes, while Buckmaster finished with 62 votes.

The winner of that primary held across the 35 county 1st Congressional District, will face incumbent U.S. Congressman Ed Whitfield, a Hopkinsville Attorney who has been serving since first winning the seat in 1995, and was unopposed in Tuesday’s primary election.

Early indications were that the Democrat primary winner in that race would be Hatchett, who held a 13,130 to 7,808 lead with 27 of the district’s 35 counties reporting just before 8:00 p.m. Tuesday night.

Only about 12 percent of Clinton County’s registered Democrats made the effort to vote in Tuesday’s primary election.

In Clinton County, for Tuesday’s primary election, there were 7,326 voters eligible to vote, with 5,948 being registered Republican and 1,378 registered as Democrats. An additional 104 voters are listed as independent or “other”, bringing the total voter registration in the county to 7,430.