Voter turnout in the recent municipal elections was better than it was four years ago. A whole lot better.
In Truro, especially, there is some reason for celebration as 46.8 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots, compared to just 19 per cent in 2008.
Of course, with competition for the mayor's seat, all three wards, and the school board seat, it was a given that the count would jump.
The only wild card was the electronic voting option, which was available for the first time. How many of Truro's 8,933 eligible voters would embrace the new technology?
In the end, 4,162 voted, at least one of whom was over 100 years old, and maybe we should be thrilled by the turnout.
But fact is the count is still slightly below the voter turnout of 4,221 from 2004, the last time Truro had a mayoral race. And that's when everyone had to walk, bike or drive to polling stations.
In Colchester County, the percentage of eligible voters who voted was 34 per cent, or just over 6,170.
That, too, is an improvement over 2008 when the voter percentage was 30 per cent.
Better yet is the fact that it improved even though there was no race for mayor, as was the case in 2008.
Only in Stewiacke did the percentage fall, from 70 to 58.54. No doubt the lack of mayoral race played a factor here, but with 11 candidates vying for six positions we're a little surprised the dip was nearly 12 percentage points.
But here's the bottom line. None of these voter turnouts is anything to be proud of.
Sure, electronic voting was new to Truro but it's a good bet that 99 per cent of eligible voters have access to a laptop, iPhone, telephone or whatever so with any kind of effort they could have taken five minutes to read the instructions and tap a few buttons.
That more than 53 per cent of them didn't bother, even in a heated race, is a bit disappointing.
Same goes for the county where 65 per cent of eligible voters didn't make the effort.
Hope the no-shows remember their devotion to civic duty the next time they complain about the performance of their local government.
