Great Slight Way on our Primary Day

Not many New Yorkers completed their civic duty in Tuesday’s public advocate election.

Just 9% of active registered voters across the five boroughs cast a ballot for City Hall’s No. 2 position, according to unofficial results from the city’s Board of Elections.

The dismal showing is a sharp drop from November’s midterms, when voter turnout in the city approached a record high.

Jumaane Williams won the seat vacated by now-state Attorney General Letitia James with roughly 133,000 votes. More than twice as many people attend shows at Broadway theaters each week.

Roughly 400,000 people cast ballots Tuesday citywide — and 4.2 million stayed home.

The tepid turnout was not surprising to those paying close attention to the election — the public advocate position is not one that’s well understood by the masses.

“It’s a double whammy of a special election combined with an office with which relatively few voters are aware of,” said Northeastern University political science Prof. Costas Panagopoulos. “Only the most informed and attentive voters would even be aware that the election was happening.”

Panagopoulos speculated that “voter fatigue” may have also played into more than 90% of voters staying home, as the election took place less than four months after the midterms.

The season didn’t help much, either — New Yorkers aren’t used to trudging through February weather to cast a ballot.

Voter turnout is a growing problem in the city — it’s been on the downswing for decades.

The 1993 mayoral election won by Rudy Giuliani attracted 53% of registered voters to the polls. In 2013, Mayor de Blasio cruised to a first term when just 26% of voters turned out.

An even more egregious example of recent voter apathy in New York came during the Democratic mayoral primary election in September 2017, which gave voters in the city their first opportunity to show up to the polls following President Trump’s election in 2016.

The turnout for that one? A measly 14%.