LEWISTON — Androscoggin County voters turned out Tuesday in steady numbers if not in droves to make their voices heard on Election Day.

Before the election, the state had predicted that 35 percent of registered voters would vote, but Androscoggin County town officials contacted after polls closed Tuesday evening reported turnouts of near or above 50 percent.

In Lewiston, some 44 percent of the city’s 22,950 registered voters came to the polls, according to unofficial results released Tuesday night.

“I’m sure it’s because of Question 3 and the five mayoral candidates,” Lewiston City Clerk Kathy Montejo said.

While turnout was high in Lewiston, it was less than the 2009 municipal election and state referendum, which attracted 54 percent of voters. Still, “it’s the most I’ve seen since the presidential election,” Ward 7 warden Louise Dufour said.

All five polling places in Auburn were busy when they opened Tuesday morning, with a line at Auburn Middle School.

Auburn tracked its polls all day long, but did not release the total number of participating voters Tuesday evening.

By 2 p.m. Tuesday, about 3,700 of the city’s nearly 16,000 voters had cast ballots, said Sue Clements-Dalliare, the acting city clerk. The final tally for Auburn’s unopposed mayoral race showed 4,684 votes for Johnathan Labonte, indicating that at least 29 percent of their registered voters made it to the polls by closing time.

In 2009, the fall elections drew an estimated 57 percent of Auburn’s registered voters.

Voter turnout numbers in smaller towns around the county trended even higher, with 46 percent of registered voters casting votes in Greene, and about 50 percent in Poland and Minot.

Those numbers were above average for a referendum-only election, Greene Town Clerk Sally Hebert said. Town clerks in Poland and Minot, however, said that their communities typically see a large percentage of their voters active on Election Day, and were unsurprised by the turnout Tuesday.

At the Lewiston Multi-Purpose Center, the polling place for wards 4, 5 and 7, Questions 2 and 3 were motivating issues for some. “The casinos were what got me in,” said Dick Brochu, who said he thought that the hype about new jobs for Lewiston if Question 3 passed was “short sighted.”

But for others, same-day voter registration was the issue that required attention. Question 1 passed in Lewiston as it did in Greene, Minot and Poland.

“Hence we’re registering to vote right now,” said Roxanne Healey while waiting for a friend to complete his voting form at the Multi-Purpose Center.

“Any kind of restriction to voting troubles me,” said Eben Miller, a Southern Maine Community College teacher who brought his 5-year-old son with him to get an early taste of democracy at the Armory, which served as the polling spot for wards 1 and 3.

And while college students were a target of opponents of same-day registration, Bates College senior Erin Crowley, a New Jersey native, said she did her legislative homework before coming to the polls. In terms of Question 1, she said, “I’m biased. That legislation helps college students,” adding that she had voted in Lewiston in 2008 and 2009 but needed to re-register Tuesday because a dorm move put her in a different ward.

But for the other referendum questions, “I did my best to do my research on the issues, and how they would positively or negatively impact Maine,” she said.

Staff writer Dan Hartill contributed to this report.

Election officials were in disagreement over the degree of hardship presented by same-day voting registration on Tuesday, even as voters showed their support for Question 1, which sought to ensure that the decades old practice continue.

Tuesday’s same-day registration did add a chore to the already busy day, Auburn City Clerk Sue Clements-Dalliare.

Just hiring registrars for the polls was difficult because there was an overall shortage of poll workers this year. Auburn and Lewiston purchased joint ads in hopes of finding enough people to keep up with the demands of multiple polling places and changing law.

In the end, she found enough people.

However, her officer will need to spend time logging each new registration.

“There are definitely hours of follow-up involved,” she said.

In Lewiston, Ward 5 warden Krystal Ward said that the process was reasonable.

New voters register at one table, then “bring us a piece of paper, we put it in the book and give them a ballot,” she said. “It’s very easy.”

And for smaller communities, same-day registration was virtually a non-issue: Minot saw just 23 people register Tuesday. Greene had only 14 same-day registrants.

“I don’t think it’s a hardship,” Poland town clerk Judy Akers said. “We register people every day.”