Two months and 16 days — get involved

Last week’s primary elections yielded some good news and some bad news — and not just for the candidates, their parties and their supporters. The good news is that voter turnout was the most in any Connecticut primary for the last 12 years; the bad news is that it was still only some 30 percent of the people who were eligible to participate, according to statistics released by Secretary of the State Denise Merrill.

Ned Lamont, of Greenwich, winner of the Democratic gubernatorial contest; Bob Stefanowski, of Madison, the Republican winner; and independent candidate Oz Greibel, of Hartford, have their work cut out for them over the next two months and six days to energize the electorate and motivate them — as of Nov. 1, 2017, there were roughly 2.1 million voters registered in the state — to go to the polls.

By Merrill’s assessment, 32 percent of registered Republicans voted on Aug. 14 and 29 percent of eligible Democrats.

The election that will occur on Nov. 6 is a pivotal one.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who has held the office for eight years, is not seeking re-election. So re- gardless of the outcome, there will be change.

There’s good reason to consider Connecticut a “blue” state. Democrats hold a substantial margin over registered Republicans — 850,000 to 480,000 — but unaffiliated voters account for some 950,000 potential votes.

And the trending in recent elections has certainly been Democrat leaning.

But there’s little disagreement that a change in direction, whether it’s brought by a Democrat or Republican, is essential if the state is going to pull out of an economic malaise that has made Connecticut increasingly unattractive to business and people.

The state cannot rely on a handful of elected officials to make change.

It requires participation by the electorate. As noted, there are more than 2 million people who have the right to speak up on Election Day.

We would say that, this year in particular, that right rises to the level of a responsibility.

We also have to agree with Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Common Cause in Connecticut, about the low participation.

“We live in a country that purports to be the strongest democracy and yet we have these low voter turnouts in every race for years now, and it’s incredibly disappointing,” she said in response to the numbers from the primary.

As we wrote of the candidates after the primary, “Each has to convince Connecticut voters at large that he has the ability to reverse the course of a state that, on so many fronts, is headed in the wrong direction.”

To that we will add that the candidates, for the benefit of not only their chances on Nov. 6, but for the benefit of their tenures and the future of the state, have to draw in the people of Connecticut.

Convince them that voting is critical to the future for all of us.

The state cannot rely on a handful of elected officials to make change. It requires participation by the electorate. As noted, there are more than 2 million people who have the right to speak up.