TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2002, -- Finally an election where people care. Secretary of State William Galvin is expecting a record turn-out of some 70 percent. From the look of things at Alexander Hamilton School in Brighton this morning, Galvin’s prediction appears accurate. A line of some 20 voters stood outside the school trying to get in. A man who lived around the corner from the school asked me if this was the place to vote -- a sign that he was not a regular voter. This was a far cry from what the scene looked like back in September.

Democrat Shannon O’Brien tried to exploit this turn-out in the city. She campaigned this morning with Mayor Tom Menino in the voter-rich areas of Roslindale and West Roxbury. O’Brien needs huge urban voting to offset Republican Mitt Romney’s advantage in the suburbs.

Thomas Patterson, the author of The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (Knopf, 2002), cautions against overly-enthusiastic estimates of voter-turnout. "There’s usually a lot of optimism in mornings," says Patterson. If it is borne-out, Patterson gives several reasons to explain it. First, voters tend to vote more when the race is competitive. Remember even in the presidential election of 2000, the contests in most states weren’t tight. Polls, for example, showed Vice President Al Gore winning Massachusetts in large numbers early on; the result, both candidates wrote Massachusetts off. Second, the inclusion of three non-major party candidates -- Green Jill Stein, Libertarian Carla Howell, and Independent Barbara Johnson -- is attracting voters who wouldn’t normally vote.

Patterson failed to mention another explanation. The statewide ballot question on bilingual education that spiked up interest in communities of new Americans.

Still even with all these factors, Patterson maintains he "would be dumb-founded" if this year’s governor’s race draws more voters than the 2000 presidential election.

Big questions -- how many voters showed up at the polls, which regions have more clout, which candidate wins -- will be decided by today’s election. We don’t know the answers now, but we will by this time tomorrow.