LEWISTON – Voter turnout was steady around the region Tuesday, with people saying the governor’s race and the Taxpayer Bill of Rights drew them to the polls.

Auburn City Clerk Mary Lou Magno said around 6:30 p.m. that she thought the city would hit the 50-percent mark.

In Minot, that mark was hit by 6 p.m., said Town Clerk Nikki Verrill. Voting was steady all day with a surge between 4 and 6 p.m., she said.

Clerks in Lewiston, Lisbon and Sabattus also reported steady turnouts, in some cases rivaling a presidential election.

By 1 p.m., about 700 people had been through Lisbon’s Ward 1 polling station, one of two in town.

“There have been no lulls at all,” said Warden Sheila Gray.

In Lewiston, the numbers suggested turnout was heavier than the 2002 mid-term election but not as busy as the presidential election in 2004, said City Clerk Kathleen Montejo.

“It’s been really heavy,” Montejo said. By 10:30 a.m., polls at Montello Elementary School had already recorded 615 voters, an average of nearly 200 an hour.

During a campaign stop at Montello Elementary School in Lewiston, Gov. John Baldacci said he was seeing a good turnout.

“People are coming out to vote and they’re coming out in good numbers,” he said.

The apparent driving issues: tax reform and the governor’s race.

Nearly everyone talked of the increasing property tax burden but folks seemed to be leaning against the TABOR referendum.

“It sounded good, but it felt wrong,” said Al Pillsbury of Lisbon. “It would be nice to limit spending, but this didn’t seem like the answer.”

Wayne Heyward, who moved to Sabattus a year ago from Virginia, said he voted against TABOR because it reminded him too much of a quick tax fix he’d experienced in his home state about seven years ago.

“It wasn’t the same, but it put the state in a bind, financially,” he said. “TABOR seems to be using a butcher knife where a scalpel is needed.

Not everyone was opposed to the measure.

Aline Provencher of Auburn said she voted for it. “We don’t have to let the government just do what it wants with our money,” she said. “It’s gotten out of hand, and it’s time to change. We can be part of the decision-making process, and that’s what this means.”

Heidi and Jason Whitten of Sabattus also said they were ready to give TABOR a try, even if it isn’t the perfect fix.

“Taxes need control and people can control it,” said Jason Whitten.

The couple also had an optimistic perspective on the governor’s race, part of an election-day swell of talk surrounding gubernatorial candidate Barbara Merrill.

The Whittens said they had talked about whether to vote for the independent, and whether their votes might be better used by supporting someone who seemed to have a better chance of winning.

“She’s my girl,” Heidi Whitten said. “I think she can get the job done.”

She smiled as she talked about the candidate, who touted her detailed plan for changing Maine’s government by ridding the executive office of partisanship.

But Heyward, who said he also leaned toward the independent, seemed more cautious.

“I like a lot of what she does,” he said. “If she was polling any better, that’s where I would have gone.”

Instead, he voted for Baldacci.

“These days I seem to be leaning toward the Democrats,” said the self-described “fence-sitter.”

Staff writers Bonnie Washuk, Scott Taylor and David Farmer contributed to this report.

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