Examining the potential turnout in Tuesday’s primary elections is like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces are nearly all the same color: No clear picture emerges until you’re done.
Thanks mostly to the election being held earlier than ever, most pundits and prognosticators are spending their time eloquently explaining how they just don’t know what will happen Tuesday.
All that’s anticipated with any certainty is that turnout will be low – probably somewhere between 20 percent and 30 percent of registered voters in the state.
Here are some things to consider:
* The primary comes earlier this year than historically. People aren’t accustomed to thinking seriously about politics this early in the year.
* When the primary was held in mid-summer, it was an axiom that voter turnout was suppressed because many voters were out of town. With a late spring primary and with no exact history to examine, the ‘vacation effect’ is now harder to gauge. There may be fewer voters vacationing this early, and yet many kids are graduating and still participating in spring activities. People have things other than politics on their minds.
* There are too many names on the ballot. Nineteen men and women are running for state school superintendent. None has significant name ID. Why rush to the polls to vote for candidates you know nothing about?
* There is too little to distinguish among the candidates. Why bother to vote when they all agree on the major issues? Put another way, there too many names and not enough name ID.
* With a small turnout, tiny advantages and disadvantages get amplified. A candidate may have an advantage because their political base is in a heavily populated urban area; or because their base is largely made of ideologues. Those who support highly partisan or divisive candidates are more likely to vote than people who oppose them.
* Alternately, incumbents and those who’ve run before generally have the advantage of not only better name ID, but better get-out-the-vote operations. But they have the likely disadvantage of under-motivated supporters.
* Local elections, like school board and sheriff, likely drive heavier turnouts. To what extent that has a cumulative effect across the state is the extent to which highly partisan voters could be neutralized.
* Some voters’ apathy grows once they get their ballots. For example, some voters show up to vote thinking they can vote a split-party ticket. Once they discover they can’t vote for or against their favored or disfavored candidate, their apathy only increases, and thus does the tendency to either not vote on certain races, or to check names that are only vaguely familiar at best.
* Many people vote only for offices like U.S. senator and governor, and skip other offices, including statewide ones. This further magnifies the importance of whimsical factors in casting votes, such as voting for someone at the top of the ballot.
* Some voters may wait until Election Day who might have voted early had they been aware of the early voting schedule at an earlier date. If that’s true, then early voting will be a poorer indicator for predicting Election Day turnout than in the past.
* Some would argue that neither party nor any candidate has a well-articulated agenda.
* The biggest grassroots political movement of this generation, the tea party, appears to be stalling, for any of several reasons – including an inability to make the promised fundamental changes in government.
* Theoretically, older voters will have a disproportionate effect on election outcomes, but this doesn’t help outcome projection much. What issues are drawing seniors to vote for one candidate over another? It’s not like some candidates are proposing Social Security cuts.
* Despite overall early voting trends, there are anecdotal signs that turnout might be higher than generally anticipated. Example: Some areas of the state have reported higher-than-expected turnouts for Saturday early voting.
Go figure. If you can.
