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BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — On the whole, Boston registered voters don't seem overly concerned with today's municipal elections. That's the word from Secretary of the Commonwealth Bill Galvin, who said in a midday interview Tuesday that voter turnout in the city has generally kept in line with his prediction of about 30%. Those numbers persist in Tuesday's election despite a historic mayoral race with an all-female field for the first time ever.
"It's pretty much what we thought it would be," he told WBZ NewsRadio. Galvin said in some spots, voting numbers were even running behind the preliminary election's paltry turnout numbers in September, which were a paltry 24.8%.
That wasn't the case city-wide as of 2:00 PM on Tuesday: turnout numbers were about 1.5 times greater than at the same time of day in the preliminary election.
In 2013, 38% of the city turned out to vote when Marty Walsh beat John Connolly in the mayoral election.
Even if the numbers end up north of 30% on Tuesday, they would pale in comparison compared to a presidential election year like 2020, which saw more than 68% turnout.
One complicating factor is the new addition of no-excuse mail-in voting, which wasn't in place in former years: Galvin said those numbers may be throwing off the count as people choose to vote by mail.
WBZ's James Rojas (@JamesRojasWBZ) has more:
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