Grains of Salt (v46): Primarily Apathetic

Tuesday was primary day for local races here in New York.

Polls were open from noon - 9PM here; I voted around 3:15 and I was voter number 96, which seemed to be a higher turnout that usual. I was feeling pretty good about things at that point.

I mean, I've been voter number 120-something or 150-something in general elections, voting after work when polls opened many hours earlier, so being 96 barely three hours in on primary day seemed to be a good sign.

And there was plenty to think about. There were a lot of hotly contested races on the Democratic side, at least. Many of the party's choices faced more than one opponent, which is rare. One race - for my district on the County Legislature - is too close to call still, and will come down to absentee ballots. We won't know until next week whether the returning establishment candidate or the young, passionate newcomer, currently down by 39 votes, will prevail.

My enthusiasm for the turnout was quickly dashed, though. According to estimates done by Dustin Czarny, the Democratic Elections Commissioner for Onondaga County, only 12.8% of all eligible voters county-wide bothered to vote.

And in the City of Syracuse, where I live, it was only slightly better - 13.1% of eligible voters made the effort and gave up a few minutes of their time to do their civic duty.

I'm not sure what the final numbers will be after all of the verification is done and absentee and military ballots are counted, but I have to wonder:

• Why do people bother to register to vote if they're not going to make the effort?

• Is it so hard to schedule time to get to the polls, when we have ample advance notice of when the primary will be?

• Too hard to get an absentee ballot if you know you won't be able to make it on primary day?

• Too much to educate yourself about the choices, and too afraid to go in blind and pick randomly?

• Too much to ask that people care about who is going to be leading your community and fighting for your rights?

• Are people too fed up with the process that they refuse to participate in it?

What the heck's going on here? 

If you were registered in a party that had any primaries, and you didn't vote, I'd honestly love to know why.