Senior citizens are often regarded as a prized voting bloc because of their reliability in heading to the polls for elections large and small.  Inveterate Cambridge politics watcher Robert Winters has plotted just how potent the older voter demographic is in a series of charts that shows the age distribution of Cambridge voters in various elections.  While the median age of registered voters in Cambridge is just under 40 (39.33), the median age of those voting in last November’s gubernatorial election was 48.68, and it rose to 56.33 for those casting ballots in the 2005 city election. 

Many Massachusetts municipalities — including Cambridge and Boston — are holding what promise to be low turnout elections today under drizzly skies.  The Winters bar graphs illustrate why, especially for such elections, campaigns wisely spend a lot of time on Election Day ferrying coffee and donuts to senior citizen buildings in a bid to butter up the reliable voters therein.