Voter turnout low in Oregon

PORTLAND — On the final day before Oregon's primary election, campaigns all but pleaded with residents to cast their ballots amid predictions that voter turnout probably won't top 50 percent.

Voter turnout as of Monday morning was at only 23 percent of registered voters statewide, according to numbers provided by the Secretary of State's Office. That's about where it was at the same stage of the 2002 gubernatorial primary, said Secretary of State Bill Bradbury.

"Four years ago, the turnout was at 46 percent statewide," Bradbury said. "I think it is very safe to assume that turnout will about be where it was four years ago."

That's better turnout than many other states can muster in a primary but still not as robust as the levels Oregon, with all-mail voting, has reached in the past, Bradbury said.

And though a few rural counties, including Gilliam and Sherman, were posting turnout numbers that almost hit 50 percent as of Monday, numbers were much lower in the state's densely populated metro area — hitting just 19.3 percent in Clackamas County and 24.9 percent in Washington County.

In voter-rich Multnomah County, turnout was only at 21 percent on Monday morning.

Even during the lunch hour, the drop-off ballot site in Pioneer Courthouse Square was attracting only a sporadic smattering of voters.

"I follow politics absolutely nil," said Shawn Mehess, 22, a St. Helens resident. "I thought it was just a local election, so I threw [my ballot] out. I'll vote in November."

Others said the stridently negative tone of the election, fueled by TV and radio ads, had been a turnoff.

"I do not understand why they can't say what they think is wrong, and how they think it should be fixed without badmouthing each other — it drives me crazy," said Diane Beeson, a 76-year-old artist from Astoria who said she was a registered independent who voted in 2002 for former GOP chair Kevin Mannix, who lost narrowly to Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Kulongoski and Mannix both are running again to capture their party's nomination in the primary, along with State Treasurer Jim Hill and Lane County Commissioner Pete Sorenson on the Democratic side and Portland attorney Ron Saxton and state Sen. Jason Atkinson, R-Central Point on the GOP slate.

All six of the candidates spent Monday in final get-out-the-vote efforts: Kulongoski, for example, tapped the power of incumbency, making a stop in Eugene to announce a highway improvement project and one in Portland to survey construction under way downtown, while Sorenson planted himself at the foot of a busy Portland bridge to greet rush-hour drivers.

Mannix was using his cellphone to make personal pitches to voters in between calling in to radio talk shows, while Saxton greeted votes at a Clackamas ice-cream parlor.

Polls have showed a tight race between the two of them, and haven't discounted Atkinson, either, who spent much of the day doing radio and TV interviews in his home base of Southern Oregon.

Elections officials said turnout numbers could be down in part because there's no hot statewide ballot measure, plus no presidential primary or U.S. Senate race.