Bigger independent vote helped boost NH Democrat turnout in state primary

Sep. 20—CONCORD — The final list of registered voters following the Sept. 10 primary confirmed that independents casting Democratic ballots in larger numbers pushed that turnout above expectations.

The high participation rate of independents in both contests dispelled conventional wisdom that unaffiliated voters pay less attention to primaries than party regulars do.

Secretary of State David Scanlan's report on the checklist found 40,936 independents voted Democratic while 35,243 of them took part in the Republican Party.

After voting, 95% of them exercised their right to return right back to independent so they were not automatically enrolled in either party.

Independents had plenty of action since both parties had competitive, open races for governor and for the 2nd Congressional District seat in the U.S. House.

In the 1st Congressional District that's in the eastern half of the state, Democrat Chris Pappas had no serious opposition while there was a tight three-way primary on the Republican side.

According to state voting records, 106,499 registered Republicans, 86,830 Democrats and 76,179 independents took part in those primaries.

Independents made up 32% of the Democratic turnout, but only 25% of those who took a Republican ballot.

Scanlan had predicted 103,500 would vote in the Democratic primary and 147,500 in the GOP races.

The turnout in the Democratic primary of 127,766 was 24% higher than forecast, while the Republican vote of 141,742 was 3% lower than predicted.

Separating out the votes of independents, 35.2% of registered Republicans cast ballots while 32.9% of registered Democrats did.

The total turnout of 269,508 in that election unofficially represented 30.3% of the 888,908 who were registered to vote, according to records Scanlan's office posted online at the end of last week.

The total remains unofficial as the state did not have registered voter totals from the towns of Charlestown, Ellsworth, Greenfield, Hart's Location and Sugar Hill.

With those omissions, independents represented 36.3% (322,274), Republicans were 34% (302,384) and Democrats made up 29.7% (264,250) of the 888,908 registered voters in the state.

As for turnout, Merrimack County voters in central New Hampshire had the highest participation rate in the state with 34.5% casting ballots while Grafton County had the lowest, where 25.8% of voters took part.

Concord Ward 10, a neighborhood in the northeast part of the city, had one of the highest turnouts with 43% while other voting precincts at or just below 40% included Hopkinton (41.5%), New London (40.2%) and Manchester Ward 1 in the city's North End (39.7%).

Nashua Ward 1 in the north (36.9%), Bow (36.7%), Concord Ward 8 (35.6%) in the southeastern sector of that city, and Moultonborough (35.4%) were all others that beat the statewide turnout by at least 5%.

Towns and wards with turnout well off the state average, below or just above 25%, included the college towns of Durham (19.4%) and Plymouth (20.4%), Lebanon (21.7%), Nashua Ward 6 just south of downtown (22.3%), Conway (23.4%), Hudson (23.7%), Derry (24.1%), Wakefield (25.2%), Windham (25.6%), Salem (25.7%) and Nashua Ward 9 in the south end (25.9%).