Primary plagued by low turnout
Observers offer multiple theories to account for lack of participation in Albany races
An ever-shrinking number of voters decide who holds elected office in the city.
The low turnout in Tuesday’s primary election was in part the result of a smaller voting pool as well as a lack of a competitive mayoral race to drive interest in other races across the city, observers said.
The Democratic primary for mayor, widely considered the actual election for the position given how Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans in the city, drew less than 7,000 voters this cycle.
Earlier this week, Mayor Kathy Sheehan said she believed the low turnout could partially be explained by a shortened petitioning process and the new primary date.
During petitioning, candidates are knocking on doors to gather signatures in order to qualify for the ballot. The state sharply reduced the number
of signatures needed to get on the ballot, which meant less face-to-face interaction between candidates and potential primary voters.
Additionally, the June 22 election was the first primary for city offices since the primary date was moved from September.
Albany was hardly alone in low turnout. Other upstate cities also reported fewer voters for their primary elections and, in general, primaries bring out a smaller number of voters than general elections.
But other factors come into play.
Over the years, the percentage of city voters who aren’t enrolled as Democrats has grown. That means fewer potential primary voters in a city that is still firmly in Democratic control and where most primary elections are for democrats.
In 2009, just more than 25 percent of active registered voters in the city weren’t Democrats. This past February, that had grown to 28 percent of active registered voters, even though the number of active registered voters grew during that timeframe as well, according to state Board of Elections enrollment figures.
In 2005 and 2009, mayoral candidates in the Democratic primary drew roughly 14,000 votes in their respective elections. And that was a decline from years earlier. According to Times Union archives, the unofficial vote total in the hotly contested 1993 mayoral primary to replace Mayor Thomas M. Whalen drew more than 23,000 votes.
The mayoral races aren’t the only ones that have seen a decline in participation.
In the 2005 primary election, the winners of seven contested Common Council seats averaged 642 votes. Two candidates topped 1,000 votes. This year, in nine contested races, the average candidate with the most votes received 285 votes, according to unofficial results from the Albany County Board of Elections.
The races for open council seats tended to see higher voter turnout than incumbent races.
This cycle’s top vote-getters in the four open contested Common Council seats averaged 443 votes, while incumbents facing primary challenges received an average of 158 votes. Despite those low vote totals, no incumbent lost their seat, although the 3rd Ward race among Councilwoman Joyce Love, James Davis and Stephen Negron, will be decided by absentee ballots on Monday.
The contests for the council seats in the 6th and 14th wards were particularly competitive because, until this year, they each had an incumbent running in them for nearly two decades.
Councilman Richard Conti, who chose not to run for reelection in the 6th Ward after six terms in office, said incumbents often only campaign and reach out to voters they know will vote in primaries. Conti sees that as contributing to a lack of interest in elections among voters.
In the mayoral primary, both Sheehan and her opponent, the Rev. Valerie Faust, ran low-key campaigns.
“Neither one ran a very explicit campaign that I could see,” Conti said.
Conti noted that low turnout can mean voters don’t feel engaged or that they have a say in their city’s direction, which could drive turnout even lower in future races.
Earlier this year, Conti introduced legislation that would make the city’s primary elections non-partisan and open to any registered voter regardless of party affiliation. The legislation has not come up for discussion in the Common Council.
Even amid lower turnout, Deborah Zamer, the Working Families Party-backed candidate in the 14th Ward, received the most votes of any council candidates this primary cycle with 729. The 14th Ward traditionally has a higher voter turnout than most other wards.
Zamer raised more than $24,000 and spent more than $16,000 during her campaign, according to the state Board of Elections. Meanwhile, some incumbents in the city’s lower wards filed statements of no activity, meaning they didn’t raise or spend money toward their re-elections.
Zamer’s campaign manager, Libby Post, said for campaigns with higher voter turnout it came down to resources and the ability to bring on good people to help run the campaigns.
“That’s really the bottom line,” she said.
Post, the managing partner at Progressive Elections, a political consulting firm, said her team relied heavily on targeted social media ads, automated phone calls, text messages and other tools to reach the roughly 550 likely voters they had identified.
“In Deb’s ward we left no stone unturned and we were running against the party’s pick,” she said. “We used every possible skill and tactic you can to build up a base going into Election Day.”
Another factor affecting vote turnout in the city is the weakness of the Democratic organization compared to years past, she added.
“The party’s not as strong as it once was, there’s not the fealty to the party like there was 30 years ago,” she said. “The committee structure just isn’t what it used to be.”