Four Johnson County precincts are split between Iowa legislative districts. This affects how we will report voter turnout statistics in all legislative elections this year.

Annexations by the cities of Iowa City and North Liberty since the legislative district lines were drawn in 1991 have changed the voting precincts for the annexed areas. However, annexation does not change Iowa Legislative district boundaries, which may only be changed by an act of the State Legislature.

The Code of Iowa does not permit us to report separate turnout totals for the two parts of these precincts. We cannot, for example, report that "of 1000 voters in Iowa City Precinct 16, 900 were from the House District 45 portion and 100 were from the annexed portion in House District 46."

We can determine a minimum number of voters within each part of the precinct by looking at the total number of votes within the precinct for each legislative race. A review of a past election involving an annexed precinct will illustrate.

In our precinct by precinct results for House Districts 45, 46, 49, and 50, the turnout figure for the annexed precincts will be the total votes cast for the candidates in that legislative district plus the write ins. Using the 1994 example above, our District 45 returns would report 607 voters for Precinct 16, and District 46 returns would report 26 voters for Precinct 16. For all other races, we would report the full 680 voters as the Precinct 16 total.

For House District 47 and Senate District 24, which include identical areas in Johnson County, we will report the higher number of votes cast within Iowa City Precinct 12 Annexed in either the Senate or House race. For example, if 52 votes are cast in the House 47 race and 53 votes are cast in the Senate 24 race, we will report 53 voters in Iowa City 12 Annexed for both races.

Our reported number for total votes cast in each legislative district will be: total votes cast at the polls in undivided precincts plus number of votes cast in the given legislative contest in divided precincts, as illustrated above, plus total number of absentee votes cast within the legislative district.

The turnout percentage for each legislative district will be the total votes cast in the legislative district (as determined by the formula above) divided by the total number registered voters in legislative district.

This slightly understates the total turnout for a legislative district, since it does not account for persons who voted within a divided precinct but did not vote in the legislative race. However, given the restrictions of the law this is the most accurate estimate we can provide.