[msdrby]

Not sure about that one either. Dean got 4% in Collin Co. and Edwards got a whopping 22% in Tarrant Co. I am thinking etiehr people don't realize these candidates have pulled out, or they are protest voting. Either way it does not give reason to low voter turnout. MY guess is that people honestly don't get the reason for having primary elections. Maybe they think it is abotu the Presidential race and that's it?

[Fedora]

Not sure about that one either. Dean got 4% in Collin Co. and Edwards got a whopping 22% in Tarrant Co. I am thinking etiehr people don't realize these candidates have pulled out, or they are protest voting. Either way it does not give reason to low voter turnout. MY guess is that people honestly don't get the reason for having primary elections. Maybe they think it is abotu the Presidential race and that's it?

I suspect that's part of it. I can't remember a time in school they ever taught us about the role of the primaries, so I have to imagine a lot of people only learn about it what they hear from the media. It would be interesting to get some hard stats on that, though--I know they do studies of causes of voter apathy, a friend of mine in the PoliSci Department researched stuff like that. I'd be interested to look into that and see what the political analysts are saying about this election's turnout. No doubt there must be some threads on that on FR I've overlooked--anyone got a good link on that?