Two days after hundreds of area college students turned out to audition for the game show "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?," less than a dozen Harvard students voted in the Quincy House polling booths in the Mass. state primaries yesterday.

Only 10 out of 576 registered voters, mostly students, cast their ballot in the 13 hours polls were open, for a turnout of 1.7 percent.

Statewide numbers suffered equally all-time low turn-outs. Less than seven? percent of voters made it to the polling booths, far eclipsing the previous low mark of 11.8 percent, set in the 1996 state primaries.

Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56, Republican Jack E. Robinson and Libertarian Carla Howell each ran unopposed in their respective U.S. Senate primaries, while only three out of 10 Congressional districts held actual contests.

In perhaps the most highly anticipated face-off, 5th District U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan--breaking a pledge to not run for a fifth term--easily defeated Democrats Joseph

Osbaldeston and Thomas Tierney. With 57 percent of precincts reporting, Meehan captured 73 percent of the vote.

State-wide, however, the dearth of candidates lead to record low voter turn-outs. While some pundits said the low numbers were merely indicative of incumbent holding-power, others were disturbed by the civic implications of a non-voting public.

Whither Democracy?