Voters to contend with rain on Primary Election Day

BOSTON — If you cast your ballot early, you won’t have to contend with the rain today. And that’s the big question—will this weather affect voter turnout.

According to Secretary of State William Galvin, more than 400,000 votes have already been cast by either mail-in ballots or in-person early voting. He is predicting that anywhere between 1.1 million to 1.4 million more votes will be cast by the time the polls close tonight. Of those, Galvin anticipates about 800,000 will be Democratic ballots and 300,000 will be Republican.

If this holds true, this would be the second highest voter turnout in a primary in recent memory, falling short of the 2020 presidential primary where 1.7 million voters turned out.

The reason for a higher voter turnout? There are several contested races on both the Republican and Democratic sides. The big races today are the governor—which Democrat Maura Healey is running unopposed. But on the Republican side voters will choose between Chris Doughty or Trump-backed Geoff Diehl. There is a three-way Democratic contest for lieutenant governor. Republicans will also have two candidates to decide in that race.

Polls are open from 7 am until 8 pm today. It’s an open primary, meaning registered Democrats will vote on the Democratic candidates, and registered Republicans vote on the Republicans.

If you’re registered as an Independent, then you get to choose a Democratic or Republican ballot. Winners of today’s races move on to the general election on November 8th.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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