New Hampshire Voting Starts Slow, but Record Turnout Predicted
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(MANCHESTER, N.H.) — Election officials predicted record turnout in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, but early indications from across the Granite State showed that voter turnout was low. That, of course, could change by the time the last ballots are cast by the 8 p.m. ET closing.
New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner on Tuesday morning predicted 250,000 residents would vote in the Republican primary, which allows undeclared voters to participate by registering as Republicans at the polls. That would break New Hampshire’s GOP-primary turnout record of just under 240,000, set in 2008.
In 2004, the last year in which only one party held a contested presidential primary in the Granite State, just under 220,000 voted in the Democratic contest — and 95,000 of them were registered as undeclared on primary day.
Anecdotes from Twitter on Tuesday morning reflected low turnout across the state. Several New Hampshire residents tweeted about sparse attendance at polling places, and WMUR political analyst James Pindell noted that a source driving around the state rated turnout as “SLOW, SLOW, SLOW.”
Gardner cautioned against reading too much into early anecdotal reports, given that they don’t necessarily reflect historical comparisons. Gardner told ABC News he does not yet have hard numbers on voter turnout across the state, though he expects strong turnout of GOP votes in the town of Bedford, in Hillsborough County in southern New Hampshire. Hillsborough is New Hampshire’s largest county; Mitt Romney carried it in 2008 with 35 percent of the vote.
Things picked up a bit heading into the afternoon of voting, as WMUR reported a steady stream of voters filing unto polling places. At Webster Street School in Manchester, N.H., poll workers told WMUR that about 1,230 had voted there by noon.
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