Primary election turnout -- not so good.

I heard early predictions from our Secretary of State that we could expect voter turnout above 30%. Secretary Dunlap even issued a press release noting, "Maine traditionally leads the way in voter turnout across the country. That's because Mainers recognize the value, the importance, and the power of their vote. I'm confident many voters will continue that tradition by casting a ballot in Tuesday's Primary Election."

Predictions of a heavy voter turnout were splashed across every major news outlet in the state. Even on the day of the election Mr. Dunlap issued this prediction in the Bangor Daily News, "I'm thinking around 30 to 35 percent," which would be about 50 percent higher than usual for primary elections.

The only guy that seemed to avoid official press releases and actually write a story was Joe Elliot at the Kennebec Journal. He wrote a piece on June 10th titled "Voter Turnout Difficult to Predict." It was the kind of story that makes local papers worthwhile. The following quote from the story captured the essence of voter turnout forecasting in Maine, "I have no idea; I'm not good at (forecasting voter turnout)," Windsor Town Clerk Sarah Cunningham said. "I have about 40 absentee ballots, and last year I had about double that."

I haven't seen the post mortem on the June 10th primary, but it looks as though voter turn out was about half of the original prediction, with somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the voters trudging to the polls.