Bad weather and a little-contested Democratic race combined to cause near-record-low turnout among Harvard students in yesterday's Massachusetts presidential primary.

With the majority of Harvard students registered as Democrats, most chose to ignore this primary because President Clinton faced no real challengers.

"The turnout is very low in all precincts," said Wayne A. "Rusty" Drugan, a Cambridge Election Commissioner in an interview two hours before the polls closed. "In my precincts, which are mainly around Harvard, the turnout has been 5 to 7 percent."

At the Ward 8 Precinct 2 polling station in Larsen Hall at the Graduate School of Education, the polling place for all the Yard dormitories, only 13 votes had been cast as of 6:30 p.m. yesterday.

Virginia Guveyan, a senior citizen working at the precinct, had her own explanation for the student noshows.

"It's because their parents aren't here to make them vote," Guveyan said. "My father would kill me if I didn't vote."

Melissa G. Liazos '96, the Harvard coordinator for the February Youth Vote '96 conference at the Kennedy School, said the low numbers of Harvard students voting here in Cambridge does not necessarily mean that Harvard students are apathetic.

"From the people I've spoken to about voting, a lot of them are still registered to vote at home and they vote by absentee ballot that way," Liazos said.

Eric S. Olney '98, the vice president of the Harvard-Radcliffe College Democrats, said that his organization made an effort to get out the Democratic vote, despite the fact that Clinton was opposed only by Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. and "no preference."

"We did a phone bank of the 300 Harvard students who are registered as Democrats here in Cambridge," Olney said. "About 20 of our members participated."

Olney said "get-out-the-vote" efforts are important even in relatively uncontested primaries with low turnout.

"It helps build your organization. It helps you figure out where you are strong, and where you are weak," he said.

Harvard Republicans seemed to largely favor Sen. Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) and former Tennessee gov. Lamar Alexander, according to Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Alliance President William D. Zerhouni '97-'98, although his organization chose not to endorse any particular candidate.

"Our members have many divergent views and so we didn't want to endorse any one candidate over another," Zerhouni said.

Other Harvard Republicans said the GOP's uninspiring candidates reduced turn-out among students.

"I think there's a lack of that real energizing candidate," said Harvard Republican Club member Steven Sakis '98.

At Quincy House, the polling place for many of the river houses, turnout was also especially light.

Quincy House master Michael Shinagel voted in the lobby of his own house just before the polls closed last night.

His was just the 30th ballot received in a precinct with 453 registered voters.

"Since I vote Democratic, there wasn't much to do" Shinagel said