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Turnout in primary doubles that of '04

By David Freedlander, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | dfreedlander@am-ny.com

February 7, 2008

Turnout in Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary was more than double what it was in the city in 2004, according to preliminary numbers released by the Board of Elections.

Unofficially, 891,624 Democrats cast ballots on Super Tuesday in the five boroughs, compared with 350,858 who did so in 2004.

Analysts said that a tight, historic contest without a natural front-runner, coupled with the decision to move up the primary to Feb. 5, when more than 20 states were voting, helped bring out voters.

Still, some election observers said the turnout wasn't enough.

"As somebody who works on civic engagement, you want your nominee to be chosen by a majority of people in your party," said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause NY, noting that less than half of city's 2.9 million registered Democrats voted.

"Comparatively, perhaps this was a success, but by any objective measure this wasn't exactly a landslide turnout."

Valerie Vazquez-Rivera, a spokeswoman for the city's Board of Elections, said there were only a few isolated glitches.

"Obviously, we would like if everyone came down to vote, but for our purposes it was a successful election."