Like their counterparts across the state, Wareham voters turned out in force for last week's special senatorial election and gave Republican Scott Brown a convincing thumbs up over Democrat Martha Coakley. Precinct to precinct, the sentiment varied.

While Brown won in all precincts, his majority varied from 55% in Precinct 5 (part of West Wareham) to almost 78% in Precinct 4 (another part of West Wareham). Between those two numbers were Precinct 6 (East Wareham) with 57%, Precinct 3 (Great Neck) with 68%, Precinct 2 (Onset) with 75%, and Precinct 1 (downtown) with 76%.

According to election tallies, 53-percent, or 7,862 of Wareham's 15,044 registered voters participated in the Jan. 19 election. Among those voters, Brown won decidedly with 4,628 of the votes compared with Coakley's 3,128 and Joseph L. Kennedy's 101. Four votes were recorded as being "write-ins, and one ballot was tallied as blank.

Initial projections of low voter turnout were clearly wrong -- in Wareham and elsewhere.
"It's the most I've seen [in a special election], and I've been here for 20 years," said Wareham Assistant Town Clerk Elaine Gonsalves.

Marion and Mattapoisett had even higher turnouts, with 66-percent, or 2,452 of Marion's 3,699 voters, and 68.5-percent, or 3,206 of Mattapoisett's 4,676 voters submitting ballots.

According to Doug Roscoe, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, the high turnout was less a populist groundswell than a result of the vast attention paid to the race.

"Special elections are typically local events with locally known candidates," said Roscoe. "But turnout relates to the amount of information - the more information available, the more people feel like they need to vote. We had polls, and those polls were being reported on by everybody - the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press - everybody writing about it translated to high turnout."

As for whether that high turnout and result signifies a resurgence in Republican support, it's difficult to say. Wareham's voter turnout reached 74-percent in the election of President Obama.