For a city known throughout the state for its vocal political activism, we are puzzled by the embarrassingly poor turnout in the primary elections for Asheville City Council last week.

A record-low 13 percent of the electorate, or 7,617 out of 57,018 voters, bothered to cast ballots.

With a sizable slate of 15 candidates, more than a few people joked that there were more candidates than actual voters.

Six finalists made the cut for the general election, led by the three incumbents, Jan Davis, Brownie Newman and Bryan Freeborn, and followed by challengers Elaine Lite, Bill Russell and Dwight Butner.

Ironically, Davis reportedly said afterward that he barely made any effort to campaign ó and yet he finished at the top.

Davisí success, perhaps, is evidence that a high percentage of those who did turn out were motivated to vote against the two incumbents (Newman and Freeborn) who supported an unpopular move to switch to partisan elections.

Other possible explanations for the abysmal turnout include the following:

ï The electorate is just so satisfied with politics as usual in Asheville that it did not feel the need to vote.

ï The electorate felt it was a waste of time to vote because council members, once in power, ignore their wishes ó no matter where they claim to be on the political spectrum.

ï The voters did not feel particularly enthusiastic about any of the candidates, despite the smorgasbord of choices.

ï Most people were so busy with the ever-more-frantic demands of modern life that they either overlooked the ill-publicized primary date or chose to skip what they might view as the relatively trivial primary election ó intending, we hope, to give their limited time and energy to participating in the regular election.

Votersí apathy aside, the brightest aspect of this election was that there was a large and broad variety of candidates interested in offering their services for the betterment of the city.