By DaNae Seymour THANKS: Greene County Republican Party Chairman Randall Brown tells the candidates and volunteers good job Tuesday night at the party's headquarters in the Bloomfield Town Hall.

"I'd say the turnout was real good," said Marjorie Cullison, a deputy in the Greene County Voter Registration office.

More than half of Greene County's 19,047 registered voters -- or 51.89 percent -- either went to the polls or voted absentee, according to figures compiled by the Voter Registration Office.

County Democrat Party Chairman Jeff Lehman from Linton said, "That's a good turnout for a primary. Of course, we had a lot of races on the Democrat ticket.

"I'd say it was a beautiful day and that helped the turnout I think. It was just a good day."

Lehman said the hotly contest Democrat presidential race can also be attributed to drawing more people to the polls than would normally vote in a Primary Election.

"It was so publicized and everything and I think it brought people out," he said Wednesday. "We had a good slate of candidates. The Primary is the primary you know. Somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose."

Lehman said he's looking forward to some more good races in the November General Election.

"We'll get these candidates together and work as hard as we can. We'll try and be out there working and as visible as we can and get the message out," Lehman said.

Greene County Republican Party Chairman Randall Brown, from Bloomfield, called it a good election overall, but he added, "I think the numbers are going to show that there were a lot of so-called Independents and several regular Republican votes that crossed over (and voted for some Democrats).

"When somebody crosses over they don't vote for every Democrat."

Brown estimated there may have been as many as 1,100 Republicans who crossed over and called for a Democrat ballot Tuesday and voted in the Obama-Clinton presidential race.

Both Lehman and Brown said the Democrat-Republican split in the county is close to 50-50 percent.

County-wide, 9,883 people cast a ballot Tuesday -- 8,606 in person at a polling location and 1,277 by absentee ballot. Nearly all of those or 9,491 cast a ballot in either the Democrat of Republican races for U.S. President.

That included 4,326 for Hillary Clinton (64.87 percent) and 2,343 for Barack Obama (35.15 percent).

Clinton squeaked out a narrow victory statewide -- 51- 49 percent with a 23,000 vote margin with about 99 percent of the 1.2 million ballots tabulated.

On the GOP ticket in the county, 2,822 votes were cast in the presidential race -- with nominee John McCann getting the largest share, 2,217. Votes were also cast for Mike Huckabee (371), Ron Paul (146) and Mitt Romney (88).

The race for Greene County Superior Court Judge also drew a large amount of local interest with 9,089 ballots cast for both parties. The total included 6,190 in the Democrat contest between winner Jacob Fish and Karen Strueh. In the GOP race between victor Dena Martin and David Powell, 2,052 Republicans cast ballots.

Fish topped Strueh, 3,525 to 2666 or 56.93 percent to 43.07 percent.

Martin defeated Powell, by nearly identical margin 1,627 to 1,272 -- 56.12 percent to 43.88 percent.

Greene County did not follow the state trend in the Democrat governor's race between Jill Long Thompson and James Schellinger.

Schellinger won Greene County 3,691 to 2,569.

However, Long Thompson held on to a narrow 7,147 vote lead (570,320-563,173) on Wednesday afternoon in the state.

That is with all but six of the 5,230 precincts in the state reporting.

With precincts still uncounted, provisional ballots to count and sort through, and a re-canvass process that will likely show shifts in some county vote totals, Schellinger said Wednesday he was not ready to concede the race, according to the Associated Press.

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels was unopposed in the primary and tallied 2,052 votes in the county.

Looking at those three races, Brown says there is no doubt that some GOP faithful did cross over and voted in several Democrat races Tuesday.

Not having a contested presidential race and governor's contest on the Republican ticket made that an easy leap for some, according to Brown.

The party chairman said he has reports from the polls in eastern part of the county of known Republicans called for Democrat ballots for a couple of the local races.

Brown said cross-overs don't really concern him in the Primary.

"It's kind of what I expected would happen. It is not a concern to me in the Primary. It makes the results a little slanted and it makes predictions for the Fall (election) a little more difficult," he said.

Brown pointed out that history tells him that Republicans should feel good about the state's chances of being won by a Republican presidential candidate in the General Election.

"We have only carried a majority for the Democrat candidate to be president one time since Harry Truman was president. That was in 1964, Lyndon Johnson beat Barry Goldwater and it wasn't by very much. Even in the Clinton heyday, Indiana went Republican for president," Brown said. "That leads me to believe this might be a different year. We may see a very close contested race. If it's Obama or Clinton, I don't think they will walk away with this state. It will be heavily contested. Like 1964, it could go to the Democrats and that is a concern of mine because that affects a lot of other races."