Turnout Light at Local Polling Stations

Update, 6:45 p.m.:

As of 6 p.m., about 300 people had voted in precinct 19-03, according to election officials at .

That's about 18 percent of the roughly 1,700 voters registered in the precinct. Poll watchers said turnout had been light throughout the day.

As of 3 p.m.—the most recent county-wide numbers available—a total of 5.9 percent of Prince George's County's 536,458 registered voters had cast a ballot. That's up a bit from 11 a.m., when only 3.1 percent of county registered voters had cast ballots. Overall, 26,843 Democratic and 4,005 Republican ballots were cast.

Outside of UPES, University Park resident Susan Dorn and Cafritz representative Bruce McLeod approached the few voters trickling into the school to make their pitches — Dorn against , McLeod for it.

The District Council is set to weigh the proposed rezoning of the Cafritz property on Wednesday, April 11. 

The polls are set to close in just over an hour (8 p.m.).

Original article:

As local voters trekked to the polls Tuesday to cast their primary ballots, few if any reports of heavy turnout or major glitches had surfaced by midday.

According to Prince George's County election officials, only 3.1 percent—or 16,702 of the county's 536,458 registered voters—had voted as of 11 a.m.

That total included about 3.4 percent of the county's 417,179 registered Democrats and 4.6 percent of the county's 47,011 Republicans. Another 156 voters cast ballots in non-partisan races such as the school board.

"We pretty much opened on time and haven't had any real issues," said Daneen Banks, deputy adminstrator for the Prince George's County Board of Elections. "From what I've heard from the judges this morning, there aren't a lot of people in line."

That trend matched up with early indicators in Riverdale Park and East Riverdale. Polling stations at  and —located , respectively—saw just a slow trickle of voters over the course the morning.

So, is the slow turnout affected by the county and the state's predominantly Democratic voter population not turning out for an election whose most prominent campaign ? Not so, Banks said. 

"I keep hearing people say this is a Republican primary election. It's not. It's just a primary election in Maryland," said Banks. "We have a Republican ballot, a Democratic ballot and we also have some school board elections up for vote."

Patch will have more images and updates from Tuesday's voting as the day wears on.