As of yesterday afternoon, nearly 20,000 Vermonters had submitted ballots for today’s primary election. The actual number, per Secretary of State Jim Condos: 19,904. With one full day to go. (More than 25,000 voters requested early ballots, so there’s room for the record total to grow.)

The old record was 18,210, set in the year 2010 when we had a red-hot five-way Democratic primary for governor.  So, a healthy pre-primary turnout and one more indication that the concept of “Election Day” is becoming less relevant. (At the bottom of this post, you’ll find a list of primary turnout figures from 2000 through 2014, prepared by none other than Mr. Condos.)

So, let’s trot out the old abacus and see what we might be looking at for total turnout. To err on the side of caution, we’ll assume that no additional ballots arrive before the deadline, 5:00 p.m. today.

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