Election pondering

Municipal primary turnout in previous 7 elections:
Date Offices Registered Voted Percentage turnout

10/10/95 Mayor, City Council 92,265 14,272 15.4%
10/7/97 Mayor, City Council 115,326 15,843 13.0%
10/5/99 Mayor/Council 124,740 20,400 16%
10/9/01 Mayor & Council 127,858 15,387 12.03%
10/7/03 Mayor/Council 104,384 16,993 16.28%
10/11/2005 Mayor/Council 118,376 13,103 11.06%
10/09/2007 Durham City Council at Large 121,026 12,875 10.64%

This year's numbers:
10/06/2009 Council Ward I and II 139,980 6,097 4.36%

Couple of things to keep in mind. 2001 and 2005 were Ward primary elections; 2003 and 2007 were at-large primaries. I can't recall which of the ward seats were primaried in previous elections, outside of 2001 when my neighborhood association president finished 2nd in the primary ahead of incumbent Jackie Wagstaff. So it may not be a true apples to apples comparison. Also, that 139,980 registered voter number looks pretty good compared to two years ago, up almost 19,000 voters, or just over 15%.

Unfortunately, that's also down almost 40,000, or about 22%, from last year's number.

Since 1995, general election turnout in off years has increased from the primary turnout by anywhere from 40% to about 100%. Even if this year we end up at the high end of the scale, we're still looking at less than 10% turnout, or about 13,000 voters in the entire city making decisions about our leadership.

Hope you're one of them.