Turnout at polls lowest in decades. Arroyo loses City Council seat

[Ian David]

By Donovan Slack and Matt Viser
Globe Staff / November 7, 2007

Boston's voter turnout plummeted to its lowest level in more than two decades yesterday, especially in the city's predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods, a tide of apathy that swept the City Council's only Latino member, Felix Arroyo, out of office.

Only 13.6 percent of registered voters cast ballots yesterday, less than half of the average turnout in similar elections since 1985, in which council seats were up for grabs but there was no mayoral election. Turnout in those elections ranged from 23 percent to 32 percent.

Reversing a trend of increasing voting by minority groups set over the last five years, turnout was especially low in nonwhite communities and disproportionately strong in traditionally white, Irish enclaves of South Boston, West Roxbury, and Dorchester. The shift propelled West Roxbury lawyer John Connolly onto the council, replacing Arroyo.

Community leaders and voting advocacy groups blamed the low turnout on a number of factors. A cold, gray drizzle blanketed much of Eastern Massachusetts for most of the day. And for the first time, there was no preliminary election this year to take the temperature of the electorate and inspire voters to rally behind vulnerable candidates. More broadly, it marks a further decline in Boston's storied culture of local political involvement, in which ward-level politics has been a crucial part of the community fabric.

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Although certain elections have increased voter turnout in nonwhite districts - fueled largely by excitement around candidates such as Deval Patrick, the state's first black governor, Sheriff Andrea Cabral, and Councilor Sam Yoon - the minority communities that comprise a majority of the city's population have not yet become fully politically engaged in the same way as the Irish ward bosses and the mayor's political machine, observers say.

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/07/turnout_at_polls_lowest_in_decades/