N.H. turns out highest increase in voters in nation

By Max Heuer

WASHINGTON, Oct. 02, 2002--Voter turnout in last month's New Hampshire primary election jumped dramatically from the 1998 midterm elections, recording the highest increase in any state this year and helping to keep the national turnout from dropping to an all-time low.

Both national and state experts say the spike in New Hampshire was largely because of heightened interest in the Republican Senate primary.

But while it is unclear if and how the increase in turnout will affect the Nov. 5 general election, the Granite State historically has been one of the most politically active states in turnout in the country, particularly in congressional and presidential elections. That was not the case four years ago, however, during the last midterm elections.

Nearly 24 percent of the Granite State's voting-age population cast a ballot in this year's midterm primary, more than 11 percentage points higher than in the 1998 elections, according to a report last week by the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate (CSAE)..

Nationally, turnout in states holding primary elections this year increased since 1998 by two-tenths of a percentage point, to 17 percent.

New Hampshire's turnout was the eighth-highest in the nation, a bright contrast to 1998, when only Colorado and New Jersey produced lower primary turnouts.

A highly competitive GOP Senate primary race between incumbent Bob Smith and Rep. John Sununu, along with a variety of other races on the Republican ticket, accounted for 8 of the 11 percentage points, said CSAE director Curtis Gans, an expert in voter turnout. In a phone interview Tuesday, Gans added that the increase "essentially had to do with the intensity of feelings in the Republican Senate race."

But New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner said in a phone interview Wednesday there was more than a Senate race motivating GOP voters.

"There were a lot of contests further down on the ballot," Gardner said. "In the state House of Representatives half of the districts had a Republican primary."

He added that there also were 11 state Senate GOP contests, the congressional seat that Sununu will vacate and a gubernatorial nomination.

That was a huge difference from 1998-the lowest-ever mid-term primary turnout nationally-- when unchallenged incumbents in the Senate, House and the governor's office hurt any real competition in the New Hampshire primary elections, Gardner said.

Gans predicted that this year's Senate election between Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and Sununu will produce a "reasonably good turnout" and that turnout could get even better if some of Smith's supporters go ahead with the write-in campaign for Smith that they announced this week.

And while Gardner said that a high primary turnout does not make a high general election turnout "automatic," he thought it was likely.

"It does have some impact because if more people in the primary have more interest, particularly if they are coming out because a neighbor is running for state representative, it's a good sign there will be a high turnout," he said.

Generally, Gardner said, Republicans in New Hampshire have more candidates and therefore more contested primaries than Democrats.

However, it isn't clear which party the higher turnout would help.
Gans said that historically, the number of people turning out to vote lends no advantage to either party.

But whether any turnout increase would help or hurt either party this year depends more on current events than on how many people decided to vote in the primary, Gardner said.

Republicans rank slightly higher than independents in the Granite State's voting base, with Democrats a distant third.

According to numbers from 2001 that Gardner's office made public, there are 233,363 Republicans, 232,805 independents and 167,062 Democrats registered in the Granite State.

Because New Hampshire lets people register to vote on Election Day, national events that happen within a week of the election could be critical to the turnout, Gardner said.

"(For) those that make up their minds the last week or weekend, it depends if something provides the passion for these voters who sometimes they vote, sometimes they don't, or aren't registered, and something happens that motivates them to come out," Gardner said.

On a national level, it is somewhat rare for voter turnout to increase as dramatically as it did in New Hampshire this year. There are a few other recent examples of it, however, particularly when "the heart of a party is at stake," Gans said.

The Pennsylvania Democratic gubernatorial primary this year in which former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell defeated state auditor Bob Casey produced a similar increase in turnout, Gans said.

Overall though, Gans said, the outlook is pretty bleak for heightened political participation.

"It is obvious that nothing has fundamentally changed in the pattern of very low voter participation in American political life," Gans said in a news release. "The events of Sept. 11, 2001, or the rekindling of those sentiments in 2002 may have helped boost patriotic fervor, but that did not carry over into political participation."

However, Gans also noted in the phone interview that "democracy tends to be healthier in New Hampshire than many states."

Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.