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s per the results of the Republican Primary for the 100th Assembly District, Lou Ingrassia Jr. of Wallkill garnered more votes than challenger Camille O’Brien last week…in Middletown that is. In Sullivan, O’Brien was overwhelmingly the people’s choice. Ultimately, the results out of Orange County outweighed that of Sullivan County. 

What is the most impressive – or rather alarming – statistic of the whole race, is that in both regions, the total vote count just barely broke 2,000 votes cast. To be exact, 2,156 people voiced their opinion on who should represent the Republican Party and face the hand-picked Democratic candidate, Paula Kay, for the 100th Assembly seat. Now, that number already seems small on the surface – but wait until you put the numerator  over that denominator. 

Those 2,156 people were the only people out of the 20,321 registered Republicans in the district. In a percentage, that is only 10.6 percent of the registered Republicans in the 100th District who cast their vote. Without even considering the winner and the loser of the election, it seems to be an insanely low turnout, even for a primary election. 

Why didn’t Republicans vote in this primary? Was it anticipated to be a landslide in Ingrassia’s favor in Middletown, leaving polls empty? There was even  a week of early voting before the election day on June 25, making this percentage almost unbelievable. 

For months, both candidates have raised banners, hosted events, met with potential constituents, the whole nine yards, and still were greeted with extremely low turnouts. Are people too focused on the near untouchable national politics to take interest in the State elections, or especially even the local elections?

In the interest of a truer democratic process, we only hope that more people in both parties extend their hands to cast their votes in the General Election on November 5, and not just in the presidential race. Democracy works best when everyone takes their rightful place at the polls.

If nothing else, please vote!