Despite having more than 100 municipal offices and four county offices, including clerk of courts, controller, coroner and sheriff, on the ballot in Tuesday's primary election, a low turnout is expected.

Shari Brewer, director of the Butler County Bureau of Elections, said historically municipal election turnout is low. Especially compared to the excitement of the presidential contest last year.

“These types of elections normally have a low turnout rate,” she said.

In 2015, 26 percent of Butler County voters (26,890) cast a primary ballot. In 2013 just 16 percent (16,782) participated in the primary. Brewer said she expects the turnout to be about the same as in 2013.

Brewer said absentee ballots are a good indicator of how an election will go, with the current term seeing 367 applications and 197 of those being returned as of last Tuesday.

“It is going to roughly be the same as four years ago,” she said.

Brewer said currently there are 124,584 registered voters in the county — 39,813 Democrats, 67,958 Republicans and 16,813 others, which includes independents and other parties.

Those in the other category will only be able to vote in three municipalities, as those have referendum questions on the ballot. The municipalities in which these non-partisan votes can be placed include Allegheny Township and West Liberty Borough which will be voting on small games of chance, and Mars, which has two liquor referendums on the ballot, Brewer said.

Brewer also said it is expected that some write-in votes will be received, as “there always are in local elections.”

She said a candidate must get at least 10 write-in votes to be considered for the nomination for either party and to have their names placed on the ballot in the fall. If two people receive the same number of write-in votes, Brewer said a tiebreaker is conducted, called the “casting of lots” which is essentially drawing numbers.

Once a winner is declared, notices are sent to those write-in candidates to see if they accept the position, and if none do, then no name is placed on the ballot for the fall general election, she said.

Brewer said officials will know how many write-in votes are cast as of election night, but not the names of those people, until the official computation begins the following Friday. She said results could be in the following Monday, or Tuesday, so write-in candidates can expect a week's wait to see if they were successful.

Brewer said her office is getting geared up for the election, and voting machines began being delivered last Wednesday.

Georgiann Kerr, chairman of the Butler County Democratic Committee, urged residents to come out and vote.

“We are hoping for a good turnout,” she said,

Officials with the Butler County Republican Party did not return calls for comment.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.Call the Butler County Bureau of Elections at 724-284-5309 with questions.