BOSTON — Races for governor, other statewide offices, and most legislative seats aren’t generating much enthusiasm — it’s the four ballot questions that voters seem to be agonizing over, the state’s top elections official said Monday.
Longtime State Secretary William Galvin forecast that around 2.2 million of the state’s 4.8 million registered voters, or around 45%, will cast ballots this cycle.
“I hope I’m wrong,” Galvin said of his estimate.
If his projection tracks, voter participation would be down sharply from the 60% turnout in the last midterm and gubernatorial election in 2018, and that’s despite the addition of mail-in voting options that were not in place for the election four years ago and are designed to boost turnout.
It would also ebb to a low water mark for general election turnout in Massachusetts, at least over the past 74 years, according to online data from the secretary’s office that dates back to 1948.
More than 960,000 Bay Staters have already voted, either by mailing in their ballot or voting early in person, pinning current voter turnout at 19.8% as of 9 a.m. Monday, according to an update from Galvin’s office.
Although voters will select a new governor and at least three other statewide officials, Galvin said that “there seems to be almost an anti-climactic attitude towards this election” and that it was lacking “tremendous enthusiasm,” with the exception of a handful of heated district races and the four ballot questions appearing before voters.
As voters sift through “contradictory and expensive” advertising messages around some of those questions and decide which bubble to fill in, Galvin called this cycle less of a midterm election and more of a “midterm exam.”
Hotbutton topics like taxes and immigration play into this year’s set of questions, which provide a direct way for voters to weigh in on specific issues — but they have to decode them first.
“I can tell you myself, not only has my office received more questions about the questions, but if I walk down the street, people want to know, ‘What about Question 1? Do you —’ And, you know, I haven’t gotten into details because I’m not actively involved in the campaigns,” the Brighton Democrat said.
He added, “If there’s any momentum behind going out to vote tomorrow, above everything else, it’s the questions.”
Galvin referred voters to summaries of the four questions, published in print and online by his office, for more information about the measures to impose a surtax on household incomes over $1 million, further regulate dental insurers, alter the state’s alcohol licensing laws, and decide whether to uphold a new law that will make driver’s licenses available to immigrants without legal status.
Because of the questions’ verbiage, which in some municipalities is translated into multiple languages, Galvin said voters should be “quite careful” to flip over the ballot in case some questions spill onto the reverse side in their city or town.
In addition to the constitutional offices that “haven’t been that exciting for most voters,” the secretary added that many local races are either uncontested or “not seriously” contested.
Of the close to 1 million ballots already cast, the secretary’s office reported, more than 187,000 people voted in person as part of the early voting period, and more than 776,000 shipped back their ballots to clerks’ offices through the mail.
Of the 1,128,731 ballots that were mailed out after voters requested them, 68.8% had been returned as of the Monday morning update.
Galvin also reflected Monday on the shifting tide of party enrollment in the Bay State.
More than 61% of registered voters are now unenrolled, or “independent,” which he called “remarkably high.” The Massachusetts Democratic Party counts below 30% of voters in its membership, and 8.9% of voters are enrolled in the state Republican Party.
“It is very much an independent state. It’s never been more of an independent voter mix than it is now,” Galvin said, adding that “suggests there is this sort of freeness on the part of voters to participate when they see something, and nothing has sort of engaged them.”
Polls are open across the state from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.