The Wilmington Morning Star (August 19, 1944)
November election to see fewer votes
Washington (AP) – (Aug. 18)
The total vote in this year’s presidential election is in for a big drop from the nearly 50,000,000 recorded in 1940 if the aggregate of ballots of both parties in recent statewide primaries is any indication of the November turnout.
An Associated Press survey of elections for Governor and Senator in 18 states showed today vote declines in 16 states ranging up to nearly 50 percent of 1942 or 1940 primary totals. Primary registrations were also off compared with recent years. Only Ohio and South Carolina polled larger votes.
Both parties recorded fewer votes in most instances. Some of the decreases were attributed to lack of contests in contrast with former years, but on the whole, the 16 states polled over 2,500,000 votes less than in the most recent comparative statewide primaries.
Important factors in the decline include the millions of servicemen scattered all over the world and the migration of workers to war plant centers. These were apparent two years ago when the off-year Congressional elections brought out only about 30,000,000 votes.
Illinois’ aggregate Republican and Democratic primary vote for Governor was off 36 percent compared to 1942.
Kansans rolled up only 188,000 votes in the senatorial primaries as against 371,899 in 1940, a drop of 183,899 or 49 percent.
Pennsylvania’s senatorial primaries drew 876,693 voters, with candidates unopposed in both parties. This compared with the previous statewide primary vote of 1,499,229 for governors in 1942, a decrease of 622,536 or 41 percent.
Ohio’s two-party gubernatorial and South Carolina’s Democratic senatorial primaries were the only elections pulling more voters to the polls than two years ago. But these races were unusually lively ones.
The Buckeye State primary vote totaled 794,924, or 125,993 more than that in 1942, but there were four Republican candidates for governor this year while Governor John W. Bricker, GOP vice-presidential candidate, had no opposition for a third nomination two years ago. The Republican vote accounted for almost all the increase although the Democratic vote was higher than 1942 by slightly more than 1,000.
Ohio may prove a November exception to the smaller vote indication this year. The Secretary of State’s office there estimates a presidential vote of 3,500,000 as against 3,376,239 in 1940.
The South Carolina Democratic senatorial primary, which saw the defeat of the Senate’s dean, E. D. “Cotton Ed” Smith, by Governor Olin D. Johnston, drew 251,792 voters as against 234,972 in 1942, an increase of 16,820. There was an enrollment, however, of 400,809 this year as against 375,672 two years ago.