Voter turnout in the Nov. 3 nonpartisan city elections was only 21.6 percent for Fulton County’s 522,408 registered voters and even lower in some cities.

Although turnout was 77.1 percent last year during the presidential election, it was only about 20 percent in the last city election in 2005.

In Atlanta, only 30.4 percent of the 238,000 registered voters hit the polls, despite the fact that residents were electing a new mayor. That city also had 11 contested City Council races and six school board races with opposition. In Sandy Springs, where there are 52,224 registered voters, turnout was even lower, at 16.1 percent, although there was a four-person mayor’s race and three contested City Council elections.

Mark Henderson, a spokesman for Fulton County Registrations and Elections, said turnout was “light but steady.”

“It’s been constant all day but there hasn’t been a major influx of voters,” Henderson said. “It’s been slow but steady. When the polls opened at 7 a.m. today, there may have been 20 to 25 people in line, at the Atlanta Job Corps [Center] on West Lake [Avenue in southwest Atlanta], also at the Palmer House on Centennial Place [in downtown Atlanta].

Henderson said voting has gone smoothly at polling places, adding there were “small, minor glitches.”

“There was one precinct [Atlanta Job Corps Center] that opened late, around 7:15 a.m., only because the custodian locked the paperwork up and left the key at home,” he said. “That was the only issue that took place.”

There were no voter referendums in this year’s election, which may have also kept people from hitting the polls.

More than 80,000 people have registered to vote in Fulton in the last year, up from 454,000 in November 2008.