Participation in early and advance voting was so low that Richmond County Board of Elections Executive Director Lynn Bailey is adjusting her turnout prediction for today's commission and school board elections.

And now, a thick fog is covering the area, which might further limit morning balloting.

Based on past November commission elections that had no national, state or mayoral races on the ballot, she had been predicting 20 percent.

Now she’s saying it’ll be more like 10 to 15 percent, which would be the lowest turnout for any commission election since consolidation in 1996. The lowest on record is 16 percent in 1999, when even-numbered commission seats were up.

Mrs. Bailey attributes this year’s lack of interest to post-Presidential election doldrums. Turnout for the June sales tax referendum was only 8.71 percent when she had predicted 10 to 12.

“I think it’s sometimes hard to get people back out to the polls and get them energized,” she said.

During early and advance voting in October, 1,367 people participated out of 41,892 eligible voters in districts 1, 3 and 5 – 3.3 percent. Before the June SPLOST election, 2,230 people out of 111,805 eligible voters citywide took part in early and advance voting – 2 percent.

Mrs. Bailey said last month’s percentage being a tad better leads her to predict tomorrow’s turnout will be slightly better than in June.

The lowest turnout Mrs. Bailey has found for any Augusta election, dating back to 1973, was 3.19 percent for a citywide Democratic primary runoff in August 1988.

Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com