The Washington Post is reporting that turnout is very low in the primary elections in Virginia’s three Congressional District’s today:
After morning and lunch-hour rushes that looked more like a trickle, Northern Virginia election officials predicted historically low turnout in today’s congressional primaries despite a fiercely competitive Democratic contest for an open seat in the 11th District, where Republican Tom Davis is retiring.’
Through much of the afternoon, precincts across the region looked like ghost towns. At the Fair Oaks precinct of central Fairfax County, just 15 ballots had been cast at 2 p.m., officials said.
“Turnout is, I don’t want to say anemic, but turnout is very, very, very, very light,” said Rokey Suleman, Fairfax County’s general registrar, who predicted that turnout was unlikely to exceed 5 percent by the time polls close at 7 p.m. — a dismal contrast to the one-third of registered voters who participated in February’s presidential contest statewide. Turnout in the 2006 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate was 5.8 percent in Fairfax County.
In Fairfax City, general registrar Jeremiah Vangen reported just 605 ballots cast by 2 p.m. out of more than 14,000 registered voters. Polls close at 7 p.m.
“The presidential campaign has overshadowed this campaign,” said Sally Ormsby, a precinct captain at the Price precinct in central Fairfax County. “People weren’t focused on this, even though it’s a huge competition.”
Well, partly, that’s because the campaign’s didn’t seem to do much to publicize it. In the past two weeks, I’ve driven through parts of Fairfax, Prince William, and Loudoun Counties — each part of one of the three Congressional Districts having an election today — and there were barely any road signs out anywhere. In fact, the only two signs in all of Northern Virginia that I have a specific recollection of were two for Lori Alexander on Route 28 between Linton Hall Road and Vint Hill Road.
That’s it.
Also, in some respects, splitting the Presidential primary away from the other races pretty much guaranteed that turnout would be lower.
And, finally, the fact that there are severe thunderstorms headed toward the area this evening is probably going to mean that late afternoon turnout will be down as well.
It will be interesting to see how this impacts the various races.
