Superlight. Dismal. Depressing. Bad.

Pick your adjective, but it's getting tougher to find the right word to describe Butler County's voter disinterest — particularly in off-year primaries like the one held Tuesday.

The turnout this time, according to unofficial results, was 15 percent.

“It's kind of what I figured,” said Shari Brewer, the county director of elections. “Unfortunately.”

She's seen this movie before. And she knows she's going to see it again. And again.

“It's never going to change,” Brewer said, followed by a sigh.

Four years ago, the primary turnout was 16 percent. In the 2009 primary, it was 21.7 percent. It was 26 percent in 2005.

A telephone call, presumably from a registered voter, to the office Tuesday morning only reinforced what many expected would be the poor showing at the polls.

“The caller knew there was an election in Allegheny County,” Brewer recounted, “but wanted to know if there was one in Butler County.”

As dreary as the turnout was countywide, a number — 14 to be exact — of the 89 individual precincts didn't even hit double digits.

None of Cranberry Township's nine precincts — notoriously among the least busy on any given primary or election — even hit 9 percent.

Cranberry's West 1 precinct achieved the dubious honor of having the single worst turnout — 3.6 percent.

Nope. That's not a misprint.

Among 1,412 eligible Republican voters in the precinct, only 51 cast ballots, election results showed. On the Democrat side, of the 689 registered voters, just 24 bothered to participate.

The second worst showing went to Cranberry's East 1, which had a 4.6 percent turnout.

Cranberry East 2 and West 3 had turnouts of 5.3 and 5.9 percent, respectively.

Brewer grasped for a reason to explain the disheartening lack of interest in Cranberry and other neighboring precincts, like in Adams and Jackson townships.

“I think it could be because there are a lot of younger voters down there. Or, ” she was quick to add, “because a lot of the races were unopposed.

“Maybe they figured, what's the sense in voting?”

There did seem to be some correlation between municipalities with more competitive races on the ballot and those with higher turnouts.

Butler, which historically has lagged the overall county turnout, actually exceeded 16 percent in five of the city's six precincts.

Political observers credited the better showing this time around to the hotly contested races for mayor and council.

Four of Butler's precinct's topped 20 percent. In the city's 4-2 precinct, one of every three eligible voters in the primary showed up to cast ballots.

The best showing of all county precincts was in tiny Cherry Valley, home to 32 eligible primary voters. Turnout was 40.6 percent.

The second highest turnout was in Saxonburg with 37.8 percent.

The borough's favorite daughter, District Judge Sue Haggerty, had opposition for both the Republican and Democratic nominations, which could have attracted more voters to the polls, as compared to other precincts.

Karns City, which traditionally ranks at or near the top of voter participation in the county, recorded a 37.6 percent turnout, followed by Bruin at 36.2 percent.

Election officials, meanwhile, reported no major glitches during Tuesday's balloting. The calibration on a few of the voting machines needed to be checked.