Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Primary Daze

The possibility of low voter turnout is an argument sometimes made against moving to a spring or summer primary. The idea is that voters simply won't be engaged enough to go to the polls.

But last week's primary in Connecticut, which featured a nationally watched contest between US Senator Joseph Lieberman and businessman Ned Lamont, his Democratic rival, certainly wasn't a low turnout event.

Despite occurring in the dog days of August, the hotly contested race drew a 43 percent turnout, the highest level of primary turnout in the state's history. By contrast, only about 26 percent of voters cast ballots in the 1998 and 2002 Massachusetts primaries.

Posted by at 02:17 PM

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