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BOSTON (State House News Service) — The state's top elections official on Monday predicted that around 45 percent of registered voters will participate in this week's election, a fairly low rate in a cycle of state and local races generally marked by a lack of enthusiasm.
"I hope I'm wrong," veteran State Secretary William Galvin said of his estimate. If his projection tracks, voter participation would be down sharply from the 60 percent turnout in the last midterm and gubernatorial election in 2018.
Although voters will select a new governor and at least three other statewide office-holders, Galvin said "it doesn't seem at this point that there's tremendous enthusiasm in this election," with the exception of a handful of heated district races and the four ballot questions appearing before voters.
As voters sift through "contradictory and expensive" advertising messages around some of those questions and decide which bubble to fill in, Galvin called this cycle less of a midterm election and more of a "midterm exam."
While there have been "slightly" more hits on his "Where Do I Vote?" website than in 2018, Galvin said he thinks only around 2.2 million of the state's 4.8 million registered voters will cast ballots.
That includes more than 960,000 who have already done so, either by mailing in their ballot or voting early in person, according to data shared by Galvin's office Monday morning.
Written by Sam Doran/SHNS
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