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Thursday, April 25, 1996     Page: 3A

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Fewer than 3 percent of the voters at one Columbia
County polling place cast ballots, and only 11 percent of the registered
voters made it to the polls in Pike County.
   
The turnout for all of Pennsylvania was better — ranging from roughly 21
percent in the Democratic treasurer’s primary to 24 percent in the Republican
presidential primary — but still well below the 1992 level. Four years ago,
the primary turnout was about 40 percent.
    A Luzerne County election official said an exact percentage of Tuesday’s
primary election turnout would not be known until Friday’s official count, but
it appeared to be 30-plus percent.
   
Election officials and political analysts blamed the low turnout on the
fact that President Clinton and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole each already
had enough delegates to win their parties’ nominations for the presidential
election in November.
   
“By the time the primaries reached Pennsylvania, the decision had already
been made in both parties,” said G. Terry Madonna, a political analyst at
Millersville University in Millersville, Lancaster County. “We weren’t
relatively unimportant. We were totally unimportant.”
   
“Remember the movie `Field of Dreams’? They said `Build it and they’ll
come,’ ” said Maurice Keaveny, elections director in Mercer County, where the
turnout rate was 26 percent. “We had an election and they didn’t come.”