Topeka ? Despite some close and heated statewide elections, a combination of national and state events will lead to record-low voter turnout in Tuesday’s primary, Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh predicted Friday.

Thornburgh said the “rough-and-tumble legislative session” that ended in May and the long and confusing process of redrawing political boundaries left voters uninterested in the political process. Combined with the war on terrorism and the declining stock market, already apathetic voters who are struggling with work and family obligations haven’t tuned into Kansas politics, he said.

“There are so many other things on their plate that they’re concerned with, they just don’t feel like they can take on one more issue,” he said. “We are at a time in our country when patriotism has been at a near fever pitch throughout our country for the last year. Americans stood in line to give blood to those who need. I’m simply asking that they visit the polling place to give their voice to our democracy.”

Thornburgh said a lack of contested races, especially at the legislative level, also will hurt turnout in the primary election. Across Kansas, there are only 33 contested Republican primaries for Kansas House seats and just nine contested Democratic primaries for House seats.

The turnout for primary elections has been slipping over the past decade, he said. In 1992, 516,532 people voted or about 43 percent of those registered. By 2000, the number had fallen to 425,568, or 27 percent of those registered. Thornburgh predicted Friday that 381,000 Kansans would go to the polls Tuesday. That is just 24 percent of those registered, and it would be the lowest turnout since statistics have been kept.

Thornburgh said such a low turnout came “very close” to undermining a representative government. If only about one in five people vote, those who do go to the polls have more power.

“When we have such a decline in voter turnout, obviously there is a very small minority that is choosing representation for everyone else,” he said. “That’s clearly a great concern of mine.”

Polls have shown the hotly contested races for the gubernatorial and attorney general GOP nominations will be very close.