Houston Registered Voters   -               nearly 1 million

2011 Early Vote Turnout      -               64,933

Turnout Percentage to date -               6

Voters who have not yet cast a ballot -  about 935,000

The trickle at the MetropolitanMulti-Service Center on West Gray was slow enough Thursday that the candidates staking out the parking lot could swarm the one- and two-at-a-time voters. And that was the busy polling place.

The few who did cast ballots early in this year's elections appeared to be doing it out of habit, duty, even reflex.

"I don't expect any change really," said Horace Greenwood, a retiree who voted at a Fiesta Mart in southwest Houston last week. "I just like to exercise my right to vote."

Without the Obama-fueled boom of 2008, the four-way $10 million advertising blitz of the 2009 mayor's race or the Republican backlash of 2010, this year's election turnout is expected to be dismal...

University of Houston political science professor Richard Murray said the low turnout is a continuation of a decades-long trend toward less civic participation. In 1971, when the city had 1.2 million people, 219,000 votes were cast in the mayoral election.

UH political science instructor Nancy Sims doubts whether this year, in a metropolis of 2.1 million people, the vote count will even break 100,000....

"The community's divided on the mayor, but it doesn't look to me like she really stirs intense opposition," Murray said. "You don't have a lot of tea party energy flowing."...

Voters over 40

Susan Hoffman, of Memorial Heights,...

A campaign advertisement by HISD Trustee Manuel Rodriguez Jr. that highlights his opponent’s support of gay rights is generating criticism days before the election.

Rodriguez, who is seeking re-election to the District III seat, noted in the brochure that his challenger, Ramiro Fonseca, has “spent years advocating for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender rights … not kids.”

The ad also points out Fonseca’s endorsement by the Houston GLBT political caucus and underlines the words “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights.”

Rodriguez describes himself in the flyer as a “family man” who is married to his high school sweetheart and is the father of four and the grandfather of five. The ad says Fonseca has a male partner and no children....