The Secretary of State's Office and local election officials say voter turnout is huge today.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein reports.
Down in Derry, poll worker Ellie Sarsioni points to the line of people waiting to register to vote.
T.33
2:50 this line that you are looking at over here, they are whole new voters who are being signed up.
Assistant Secretary of State Dave Scanlan says he’s gotten reports from local election officials across the state reporting a strong turnout.
He says there are two key reasons.
TAPE: two reasons, warm weather, competitive races both sides of the ballot.
Earlier in the day news broke that some towns had actually even run out of ballots.
The Secretary of State has received calls from a handful of communities including Amherst, Bedford and Portsmouth seeking additional ballots.
But as of 4 o’clock this afternoon, the Secretary of State says no town has had to use them.
Last week, Secretary of State Bill Gardner predicted a record turnout- 500,000 people, 60% of all registered voters.
The Office says it’s too soon to know whether the state will hit or even exceed that number.
But Ward 6 in Concord offers a sense of what is happening today.
According to 2006 general election results, the ward had one of the lowest turnouts in the county.
Greg Banks says that’s because the neighborhood is highly transient.
This year though, Banks says even Ward 6 is expecting 1100 voters.
4:46 the presidential election four years ago really was one of the strongest we had, I think we had 15-1600 at that time, that was the general election. This is the best we’ve ever done for a primary election.
Gardner predicts 50,000 people will register to vote today.
For NHPR News, I’m DG.
