Chilly turnout for a hot election

Despite all the heat in this week’s 23rd Congressional district special election, turnout was quite low–only 30% of registered voters turned out to cast their ballots–125,000 out of 410,000 registered voters, acoording to unofficial results.

While presidential years usually have higher turnout–48.5% in NY-23 in 2008 and 55% in 2004, turnout was still way down from the last midterm vote, 2006, when 41.2% come out for an uninspiring rematch between a popular incumbent, John McHugh, and the Democratic candidate, Bob Johnson, whom McHugh had easily defeated in 2004.

Despite the unprecedented amount of money and rhetoric expended on the 2009 campaigns a huge number of voters just stayed home.

What does this say about the effect of the national spotlight that was turned on NY-23? Did the massive negativity of the ad war and the incessant robo-calls actually suppress turnout? Did this amplify the impact of get-out-the-vote efforts? Did the results accurately reflect the views of the district? Does low turnout undermine the importance of the vote when trying to extrapolate its import for NY politics in the future?

Plenty of room to read it either way.