Election: One vote for weather

Much to the disappointment of backyard gardeners tree-pollen sufferers, Tuesday's thunderstorm threat has turned into a dud.

Instead, after a morning fog, primary day turned out to be quite pleasant and mostly dry; in short, a nearly perfect day for voting across the state.

Nevertheless, based on our reporting and what official observers are telling us, the turnout figures are likely to be bad, even for an off-year primary.

If you've been following us for awhile, you might recall our own study of the effect of weather on voter turnouts.

We looked at 30 years of election returns in Philadelphia, and among the 10 with the highest turnouts, measureable rain fell on half of them. Of the 10 with the lowest turnouts, seven were rain-free.

No one is quite sure of the origins of this concept that weather affects turnout took hold. We do know that in our early days in the business, we were told to get weather into the third graph of our election stories.

We also know that in his Making of the President 1960, Theodore White suggested that fine weather across the country bumped up the turnout that helped Sen. John F. Kennedy squeak to victory over Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

But the key to that victory was Illinois, and the late weather historian David Ludlum noted that the weather wasn't particularly pleasant in that state on Election Day 1960.