Primary Farce: Low Voter Turnout in MA Senate Primary a Crisis of Government, an Opportunity for the Opposition

Reports on the US Senate primary elections to fill the seat of the late Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts uniformly emphasize the lack of voter participation. TPMDC writes:

Turnout in today's Democratic primary for the Massachusetts special election for Senate -- tantamount to election for Ted Kennedy's seat, in this deep-blue state -- is turning out to be astonishingly low . . . as of 3 p.m. ET, only 35,000 people had voted in Boston, less than 10% of the city's registered voters.

At WikiNews, we read:

Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin said that he expected turn out to be "very light" with 500,000 to 900,000 voters out of Massachusetts 4.1 million registered voters participating. He added that the turnout would be much closer to "to the 5 than to the 9." Galvin further noted that turnout would mostly consist of Democrat and Republican voters and not independents noting that, "My instinct is that the independents are not participating."

In other words, as many as 7 or 8 out of every 10 voters in Massachusetts could not be bothered to cast a ballot for any of the candidates being floated by the Democratic or Republican Parties. At what point do we admit that officials – and even entire governments – elected with such thin support from the public are simply illegitimate? Some of us already have. Bad Karma writes:

i'm having a good chuckle reading all the party faithful gnashing their teeth over their "get out and vote" plea today. the turnout is dismal, and i, for one, couldn't be more encouraged. after all, this is NOT an election--it's a party primary--a private function for the people who are screwing our nation, and screwing it very, very badly. worst of all, it's a soiree that's being paid for by *all* of us, to complete the travesty . . . the only thing these "two" parties, who are really only two sides of one, are for, is anything to advance their own agendas and ideologies of graft and corruption and denial of personal liberties. so it's no wonder to me that nobody but nobody wants to vote for adherents of either crime syndicate.

However, in the special election to be held on January 19, 2010, Massachusetts voters will not be stuck with the false choice between a Republican and a Democrat. Earlier this week, independent libertarian candidate Joe Kennedy (no relation to Ted) completed the signature requirements necessary to get his name on the ballot. If the primary vote is any indication of participation in the election to come, Kennedy need only garner the active support of 1 or 2 in 10 voters to come out on top in the contest.