Presidential Primary Voting Today in Braintree, Across United States

With the brunt of the national media's 2012 Republican Presidential Primary coverage turned elsewhere today – think Ohio and Georgia – Braintree and the rest of Massachusetts will likely be a fairly quiet place to fill out a ballot.

Compared to 2008, when both Democrats and Republicans featured open presidential contests and 50 percent of Braintree's registered voters showed up to the polls, today's primary will probably draw about 20 percent, Joe Powers said.

"I think it's going to be a light turnout," he said.

For an "apples-to-apples" comparison, Powers suggested looking instead at 2004, when there was also only one open primary – the Democrats' – and turnout in Braintree was 23 percent.

There were 24,006 registered Braintree voters as of Monday morning, out of a population of 35,744. Of those, 8,894 are Democrats, 2,758 Republicans, 18 Green-Rainbow and 12,336 unenrolled. Members of last and largest group can choose which type of ballot they would like to mark today.

In addition to the presidential contest, voters in Braintree will be presented with options for state committee man and woman for each of the major parties and a slate of candidates for the town committees as well. The Green-Rainbow party does not have candidates for the state committee.

"Super Tuesday" occurs later this year than during the last cycle, when John McCain and Barack Obama emerged as their party's standard-bearers, and is also weighted differently for the Republicans this time around, as many more states will award their delegates proportionally, possibly leading to a GOP primary race that lasts into the summer.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney leads the pack with 203 delegates, followed by former PA Senator Rick Santorum (92), former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (33) and Texas Congressman Ron Paul (25), according to the Associated Press. Today's voting in 10 states will yield 419 GOP delegates.

Braintree recently adopted new precinct names and shifted some boundaries in reaction to a that showed a large increase in population locally. The changes will affect about 1,200 people's polling places for the first time during today's voting.

For more information on the precinct changes, see this Patch article: .

Visit www.braintreema.gov/townclerk for more voter information from the clerk's office, including polling locations.