By Josh Resnek
In less than 3 weeks, voters will flock to the polls for the city’s four primary races.
Voting is expected to be light, however it is difficult to handicap just how many people will vote or choose to stay home.
Without a mayoral election or a presidential election, turnout tends to be lighter on Primary Day.
How light, is the question.
Also, a great percentage of the total primary vote, perhaps as much as 25% of the vote will come in by mail ballot or with early voting assigned voting locations.
Election Department officials said Monday that to this date about 2,000 voters have requested ballots by mail.
Officials said it was likely that as many as 1,000 of those who requested the ballots will send them in and that a few hundred will use the early voting option.
Officials said they are expecting a total Primary vote in the 4,000 territory but that predicting the vote is “tricky.”
“It is very hard to predict with a real sense of accuracy exactly what the number will be,” said Director of Elections Danielle Pietrantonio.
Two years, about 6,000 voters came out for the primaries but that was a mayoral election year, and so, the number of total voters was substantially higher than what officials are expecting for September 19.
“We won’t know the exact vote until all the votes are counted,” she added.
Indeed.
It is quite nearly impossible to predict the outcome of an election until it is held.