Reports of the anemic early-voting turnout in Denton County’s primary election runoff left us with two inescapable conclusions. First, voters need to be willing to work a little harder at exercising their franchise. Second, we badly need a viable two-party system.

Friday’s paper brought the news that fewer than 1 percent of the county’s registered voters took part in early voting for the runoff primaries. Most of those voters — 1,599 of them, to be exact — were Republicans. They were voting to choose a nominee for 393rd District Court judge. Only 202 Dem­ocrats voted early in that party’s runoff primary, which was understandable, we suppose, as the only race on the ballot was a statewide contest over who will be the (underdog) nominee for the state Railroad Commission.

County Elections Commissioner Don Alexander said the dismal turnout in early voting could likely presage the smallest runoff vote in the county’s history. Alexander, who has a good track record for predicting voter turnout, said he doubted that more than 1,600 voters would show up at the polls on Tuesday, the official runoff election day.

For Democratic Railroad Commission candidates Dale Henry and Mark Thompson, that probably won’t mean very much, but for Republicans Steve Burgess and Doug Robi­son, it could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Robison and Burgess are the runoff candidates for the GOP nomination for that district judgeship. Both men — and a couple of other capable candidates — spent a lot of time, energy and money in the first primary campaign getting their messages across to the voters. These top two candidates have gone the long and torturous second mile in an abbreviated runoff campaign that now appears will be decided by about 2,500 voters or so. This can’t be heartening for either man.

Even more disheartening is the fact that there is no Dem­ocratic candidate for the judgeship in the 393rd District. That means that a district judge may ultimately be elected by less than 3 percent of the county’s approximately 330,000 eligible voters.

We would not feel nearly as bad about this paltry turnout if the Democrats had a candidate for the judgeship. Turnout will be high in the November general election; the presidential election will guarantee that, no matter who ends up with the Democrats’ presidential nomination. Then there could be a spirited and informative campaign for the local judgeship between Burgess or Robison and whomever local Democrats had chosen as their nominee.

But there won’t be.

This year’s Democratic presidential primary rejuvenated that party in Texas, and in Denton County. It would be good news for the county’s Democrats, and for the county in general, if that resurgence could continue.

We say that only because we believe that more choices make for better government, and because we don’t think a district judgeship should be decided by a handful of voters.

There is little than can be done at this late date to remedy this specific situation. About the best we can do is to urge all Republicans who voted in the first primary to make a special effort to get out Tuesday and vote in the runoff.