Secretary of State John Merrill says he is lowering his initial prediction for voter turnout on December 12th.

“With all of the things that have been introduced and the wavering support for candidates and the national media attention that has really discouraged a lot of people from being interested, I’ve dropped that projection to around 18 to 20 percent,” said Merrill.

Merrill’s initial expectation was as high as 25 percent of the state’s more than 3.3 million registered voters.

Merrill, however, does expect a possible surge in write-in votes.

“We’ve had a lot of inquiries about write-in candidates and how does someone write a person’s name in, are there any specific qualifications for a write-in candidate to be considered.”

“One of the things that we’ve done to make sure that people know that their vote will count if they choose to write-in a name, is an instruction sheet that will be available at each polling site.”

Merrill says there has been no sign of an organized campaign to write in a new candidate’s name.

There is still time to apply for an absentee ballot for the special election. Those ballots will be available until December 7th and must be returned by December 11th. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on December 12th for the special election.