Despite hype, north country turnout for NY-23 lower

Despite the shine of the national media spotlight, fewer north country residents voted in the 23rd Congressional District race this year than voted in either of the district's two previous contested campaigns.

About 48,074, or 34 percent of the 141,019 registered voters in Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties cast their ballots for the congressional seat on Election Day. The turnout is lower than the 63 percent of voters that cast ballots in 2008 and 43 percent in 2006.

Turnout was higher last year, in part, because of the presidential election. In 2006, there was a gubernatorial race.

“Those percentages are certainly not atypical for what you’d expect in and off-year election,” said C. Fred Exoo, a professor of government at St. Lawrence University, of Tuesday’s results. “There may have been one or two things depressing turnout.”

Among those factors, Mr. Exoo said, was the negative advertising attacking all three candidates.

“There was a lot of negative advertising in this campaign, a lot more than the voters in this district are used to,” he said. “The trust in American politics is at pretty low levels right now and trust is correlated with voter turnout.”

A factor of that declining trust is the amount of money used by special interest groups to attack opposing candidates, Mr. Exoo said.

Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative Washington D.C.-based group, announced earlier this week that it spent $1,022,040 on Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman.

“One of the reasons for declining trust is what people deem as the inappropriate influences of special interest money,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Dede (Scozzafava) voters just stayed home,” he said. “A lot of fat cat special interest money was used to beat her up.”

Local elections officials said that a 30 percent turnout for off-year elections was typical.

“A lot of turnout was driven by local issues,” said Jerry O. Eaton, Jefferson County Republican elections commissioner. “Areas like the Cape (Vincent), Lyme and Henderson, those have local issues that impact everyone’s daily lives. You’re looking at 45 to 50 percent turnout in those areas.”

“The more localized you get, the more that people have a passionate connection to the issue,” said Sean M. Hennessey, Jefferson County Democratic elections commissioner. “Those local issues bump up the overall voter turnout.”

Voter turnout for Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties:

2009 (unofficial):
• Jefferson: 21,707 votes cast out of 59,463 registered voters (36.5 percent)
• Lewis: 5,127 out of 17,554 (29.2 percent)
• St. Lawrence: 21,240 out of 64,002 (33 percent)

2008 (McHugh vs. Oot):
• Jefferson: 39,626 out of 63,673 (62.2 percent)
• Lewis: 11,339 out of 17,530 (64.7 percent)
• St. Lawrence: 41,787 out of 65,488 (63.8 percent)

2006 (McHugh vs. Johnson):
• Jefferson: 26,359 out of 65,190 (40.4 percent)
• Lewis: 7,747 out of 17,698 (43.8 percent)
• St. Lawrence: 29,774 out of 65,808 (45.2 percent)