One thing is for sure as of 3 p.m.: Belmont had come to vote.

According to Belmont Town Clerk Ellen Cushman, 2,858 voters, or about 17 percent of the 16,000 registered voters, had cast ballots in Belmont's eight precincts in the Special State Senate primary election by 3 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 13.

Cushman said she forecasts that approximately 24 percent or more of Belmont voters will have taken the time to vote for one of the four final candidates – Belmont State Rep. Will Brownsberger, Watertown State Rep. Jonathan Hecht, former state fire fighters union president Robert McCarthy and Brighton attorney Tim Schofield – who are running to replace Steven Tolman as senator in the Second Suffolk and Middlesex District. 

In general, Cushman said, Belmont’s voter turnout is about 85 percent for presidential elections; 10 percent (and sometimes as low as 4 percent) for local elections.

Thirty-five percent of the voters made a choice about whether the town should fund the new Wellington School and the turnout for Scott Brown’s run against Martha Coakley was 67 percent.

Belmont's totals are far and away the most active of the three communities reporting voting trends so far. In the Boston neighborhoods of Brighton, Fenway and Back Bay, 1,890 voters had taken ballots as of 3 p.m. while 1,454 ballots were cast in Watertown.

Polls will be open in all communities until 8 p.m.