FAIRHOPE, Ala. — With rain holding off Tuesday morning and a large field of candidates running in hotly contested races for mayor and City Council this year, local elections could set new records for voter turnout, some local officials and observers said.

“I think it’s going to be a big turnout,” said Fairhope Police Chief Mike Comalander Tuesday, as he watched a line of automobiles stream into the Civic Center parking lot before 8 a.m. on election day. “There was a line of people here to vote at 7 a.m.”

The single polling place at the Civic Center in Fairhope opened 7 a.m. Tuesday and was scheduled to close at 7 last night.

A local elections official said the results would be posted on the glass doors of the Civic Center by 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. “All but about 15 absentee ballots have been returned in the mail,” said City Clerk Lisa Hanks Monday night. “That’s out of 274 ballots sent to people who applied for them.”

Hanks does not know if all those absentee ballots will be certified, but the high percentage of mailed ballots indicate the ultimate count of approximately 250 absentee votes cast will be significantly higher than the 122 absentee votes cast for mayor in 2004. In 2000, 205 absentee votes were case in the mayoral election, according to City Council minutes.

“That might mean we will have a large turnout tomorrow,” Hanks said, referring to the number of absentee ballots requested and percentage of ballots already mailed.

The deadline to have absentee ballots received in the local post office was by noon yesterday, Hanks said. She said her office would be delivering the absentee ballots to the polling place after a final visit to the post office at noon.

“I think it will be close to 70 percent,” said one mayoral candidate, referring to the overall voter turnout, as he held a sign at the entrance to the Civic Center parking lot Tuesday morning, along with most every other candidate for mayor and City Council and dozens of supporters.

Several supporters of local candidates at the Civic Center Tuesday morning also said they felt confident that turnout would be higher, possibly much higher than in previous elections.

“There are so many candidates running, and there has been so much interest in these campaigns,” one observer said.

There are currently 11,580 registered voters in Fairhope, but that number includes both active and inactive voters, Hanks said. Inactive voters are those who have not voted in recent elections, she said.

The number of registered voters has not increased significantly since 2004, a county elections official said recently.

In 2004, 4,583 total votes were case in the mayoral election in Fairhope. In 2000, 4,652 votes were cast for mayor.

This year, with seven candidates running for mayor, one candidate must receive 50 percent of the overall vote plus one vote in order to avoid a runoff between the top two vote-getters, which would occur Oct. 7.

Although there are county and city laws prohibiting campaign signs on school and some public property such as in areas of the Civic Center on election day, that did not prevent a number of candidates from placing large numbers of new signs in such places Monday night and Tuesday morning, some observers said.

“We couldn’t begin to pull all illegal signs today,” one city employee said. “There are just too many. We’ll get to them after the election.”