Turnout at USC low on Super Tuesday
As polls opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday across the state, voters marked their ballots to select California governor and U.S. senator nominees.
At USC, there was very little trace of the frenzy of student activity that surrounded the 2008 presidential elections. The polling station at Marks Tower, which on Nov. 4, 2008, saw more than 300 students filter in to cast their ballots, was empty much of the day. As of 1 p.m., only two people had visited to vote — one student, who deposited a provisionary ballot, and a USC employee. At the time of print, only 5 students had voted.
Little boxes · Polling stations in and around USC, such as this one set up in Marks Hall, were not densely populated Tuesday. - Dieuwertje Kast | Summer Trojan
Jessica Overby, a senior at S.E.A. Charter Girls Academy in Los Angeles and a volunteer at the voting station, said she arrived at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning to set up for the day, and was surprised by the dearth of student voters.
“I thought it was going to be full of people,” she said.
Turnout was low across Los Angeles, however, in keeping with recent primaries. Only 27 percent of registered voters in Los Angeles voted for the 2006 gubernatorial primaries, according to the Los Angeles Times, which predicted another low turnout.
Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and appointed chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, said the low turnout was nothing unusual.
“Turnout is always lower among all voters in the primaries,” Schnur said. “Turnout is always lower in a midterm election, than in a general election.”
Schnur said it’s reasonable to assume that students will come to the polls in larger numbers for the general election.
“We’ll see in November,” he said.