In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state primary, which included a much-scrutinized battle for the US Senate between Democrats Edward J. Markey and Joseph P. Kennedy III, saw turnout top 36 percent.
While this year’s turnout may have exceed some prognostications, experts gave various explanations as to why interest remained relatively low: no huge, eye-grabbing clashes that caught the interest of casual voters; a smattering of contested primaries for obscure and niche public offices that confound or confuse voters; the timing of Election Day, falling just after Labor Day; or just good old-fashioned American apathy.
“The truth of the matter is Americans don’t vote,” said Lou DiNatale, a longtime political analyst and veteran Massachusetts pollster. “It’s as simple as that. Unless there’s war or recession.”
Across Massachusetts, there weren’t many contested races. At the federal level, the state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation ran without any opposition in the primary. While Senator Elizabeth Warren didn’t have Democratic opponent this year, there were three Republicans vying for the opportunity to take her on in the general election.
The lack of a big-time, high-profile primary clash contributed to the lack of turnout, according to David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College.
“It’s just such a quiet, non-competitive year in the state in general,” he said.
Every two years, all 160 House districts and 40 Senate districts are up for reelection. But as is typical in a state where incumbents rarely face challenges,just a sliver of voters had the chance to cast ballots for a contested primary election.
There were contested State House races in a number of locales across the Commonwealth. And there were down ballot races that managed to garner some buzz, including a primary contest for the Suffolk County clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court and battles for the Governor’s Council.
But still, the obscurity of those panels means they won’t drive the casual voter to the polls, according to experts like Hopkins, who called the Governor’s Council one of the most obscure and confusing of the elective offices in the state.
He had a similar conclusion for the Suffolk SJC clerk post: “People don’t really know what it does or what it matters for one person to be elected over another.”
(The Governor’s Council, an 8-seat body, vets judicial nominees and approves politically charged pardons, while the clerk post is primarily responsible for overseeing the single justice caseload for the court, or the caseload of emergency appeals that a single justice screens and determines whether they should be heard by all of the high court justices.)
Eldin Lynn Villafañe, a public relations specialist, acknowledged that such races are not typically considered “sexy” and usually don’t garner the media attention when compared to well-financed runs for more powerful seats.
Much of the media’s political coverage, he said, has been focused on the national political divide and the impending presidential tilt on tap for the fall. That, he said, has played a major factor in what draws the attention of prospective voters.
“The media, it’s been saturated by the US presidential race,” he said. “That has been driving the coverage.”
He acknowledged that the timing of the primary, which was held the day after Labor Day, amid a back-to-school rush for many parents, could have somewhat affected turnout.
“I could see where, right after Labor Day, people are still returning or extending their vacation a little beyond the long weekend . . . and they may have skipped this one,” he said.
Last year, Massachusetts lawmakers voted to shift the date of the primary.
Massachusetts statute designates the primary to be held on the seventh Tuesday before the general election, or in this year’s case, Sept. 17. That would’ve been the latest state primary date in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The reason behind the move was rooted in logistics, said Galvin, the secretary of state, last year. He asked lawmakers to approve the change.
Federal law requires that the state make ballots available for military personnel and voters living overseas 45 days before the November election, which, this year, meant by Sept. 21.
The state’s perennially late primary brushes up against that deadline, effectively giving officials four days to turn around ballots if the date isn’t moved.
That, Galvin said, is “not practical or feasible.”
“Would I prefer it to be a different day? I would,” Galvin said last year. “Unfortunately, there are no real options.”
There has been a long-running debate about moving the primary permanently. Legislation filed by one state senator, for instance, would shift the state primary to the second Tuesday in June, a move Galvin said he, too, is open to making.
And past comparable state primary Election Days have been held on days that don’t immediately follow a three-day weekend and turnout has still been low. In 2016, the year turnout did not break 9 percent, the state primary was held on a Thursday.
Erin O’Brien, a political science professor at UMass Boston, agreed that having the primaries on the Tuesday after Labor Day was an “impediment” to turnout, as was the limited number of competitive races, and a feeling that, in Massachusetts, many of the ballot box outcomes feel pre-ordained.
“I literally just voted and most of the races were uncontested,” she said over the phone Tuesday evening.
The turnout for the presidential contest in November will look “incredibly different” from Tuesday, she said.
“People are more excited to vote for the top of the ticket because they know the names,” she said.
Many voters simply did not know Tuesday was Election Day, said O’Brien, “and once they find out, they haven’t done their homework.”
For a low-information voter, primaries can present difficult choices because they don’t have present party differences on the ballot.
“If you don’t know either of them, you don’t have an easy cue as to who to pick,” she said. “If you’re a low information voter this about the lowest information races.”
Matt Stout, Samantha J. Gross, Emma Platoff, and Anjali Huynh of Globe staff contributed to this report.
Danny McDonald can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.
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Publish date : 2024-09-10 06:50:00
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