Today, due to the dearth of competitive city council elections and lack of a mayor’s race, it is likely that few New Yorkers will go to the polls. A good number of residents, tied up in the hectic pace of their daily lives, will probably not even realize today is an election day.

In this, New York City voters are not unique. During off-years, when most municipal elections are held, voter turnout has fallen almost to embarrassingly low percentages around the country.

Throughout New York City, polling places will be open for voters today across the city at public schools, churches, and meeting halls. Most of the races involve the election of justices. Two city council special elections are on tap, the 40th District in Brooklyn and the 51st in Staten Island.

When we were attacked on September 11, 2001, an election day in New York City and elsewhere around the country, optimists hoped the shocking situation would cause an upsurge in voter interest. Issues of life and death, war and peace, would finally help to arrest the hemorrhaging of voter interest at the local and national levels. It didn’t happen.

The 2002 national elections drew 38% of voters, and the much talked about 2006 national elections, credited with having demonstrated a huge uptick in voter interest, attracted only 40% of voters, according to a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Thomas Patterson.

The great exception, cited by Mr. Patterson and other experts in voter turnout, was the 2004 presidential election. In that year, more than 60% of the population turned out to vote. Mr. Patterson called the turnout “spectacular,” but it was only an increase of 5% from 2000. Upon reflection, that number is less impressive than it seems.

In 2004, both political parties had found ways to get more of their own voters to the polling places. The Republican National Committee perfected their turnout machine by building a nationwide database of voters. The Democrats attempted to do the same by improving their own voting lists.

On the local level, though, the situation is much more grim. Out of New York’s population of over 8 million people, only 3.8 million are registered voters. New York City’s Board of Elections tries to encourage voters to go to the polls. The board sent out a mailing to registered voters during the lead-up to the election at a cost of $1.2 million. It also maintains a phone bank, 212 VOTE-NYC, to respond to voter inquiries.

Last October, Mayor Bloomberg and the Voter Assistance Commission launched “Voter Awareness Month.” The commission ran the program again this October, spotlighting the judicial elections.

In all five boroughs, there were symposia outlining the importance of the elected judiciary. A number of different not-for-profit groups, among them the New York Immigrant Coalition and Brownstoners of Bedford Stuyvesant, worked with the commission in conducting voter registration drives and distributing election materials at subway stops.

A group of new Russian-American citizens registered to vote as part of a “Citizenship Day Celebration” in Bensonhurst. Voter advocates hope that new Americans will use their franchise with more vigor than longtime residents.

Despite these efforts, election experts expect turnout to be very low today — probably even lower than the 17% who came out to vote in city council elections in 2003. Like other major metropolitan areas, New York enjoys high voter participation in national elections — more than 60% of New Yorkers turned out to vote in 2004. Those passionate voters are often nowhere to be found, however, when it comes to a local election.

Of the few who do come out to vote many are government employees, their families, and members of government-funded not-for-profits. They comprise an increasingly larger share of the local electorate.

A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Steven Malanga, commissioned an exit poll of Democratic Primary voters in 2001. Forty-one “percent of voters in the October 11 Democratic runoff worked directly for government or the heavily government-subsidized nonprofit sector,” Mr. Malanga wrote. “In the end — counting spouses of those who work for government, or retirees with pensions from public-sector jobs — it’s possible that a majority of all those voting on October 11 in some significant way depend on public spending for their livelihood.”

“It helps to explain why public sector benefits and salaries are so much higher than the private sector,” Mr. Malanga, citing a finding of the Citizens Budget Commission, said. The commission analyzed data from the Department of Labor and found that the hourly earnings of state and local government employees were 15% higher than those of private-sector employees in the New York City region.

The newest hope for voter turnout is the Internet. After all, a dramatic upsurge in political interest among previously disengaged individuals — both on the right and left — has taken place online. But don’t hold your breath. While the right- and left-wing blogospheres have caused a revolution of political fundraising, it’s yet to be seen how many voters actually contribute to campaigns.

The blog community will form a new kind of intense partisan sure to show up on election day. Sadly, though, more Americans will probably be spending their time looking for holiday gifts on the Internet than examining which candidates would be best to vote for.

Mr. Gitell (gitell.com) is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.