As voting proceeded in Iran’s presidential election on Friday, early estimates from campaign officials showed that only about 40 percent of eligible voters appeared to be casting ballots. The low turnout was a potential blow to the ruling clerics, who made voter participation a marker of their legitimacy and had hoped to achieve 50 percent turnout, compared with 70 percent in past presidential elections.

Hafez Hakami, a campaign manager for the lone reformist candidate, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkians, confirmed in a telephone interview after the polls closed that turnout was below expectations.

“We were really expecting participation of over 50 percent,” he said, “but unfortunately the social mood for voting was still heavy, people could not be convinced to show up at the ballot box.”

Having endured years of economic struggle and sharp restrictions on personal and social freedoms, many Iranians say they have grown tired of empty promises made by politicians who are unwilling or unable to deliver them. For some voters, the refusal to cast a ballot was the only way of rejecting the government.

“The rift between the government and its people is serious,” said Omid Memarian, a human-rights activist and a senior analyst at DAWN, a think tank in Washington. “From university students to women to political prisoners to those who lost their loved ones during the 2022 nationwide protests, there has been a consensus that Iran needs much bigger changes than what the regime is proposing.

“People are sick,” he added, “of choosing between the bad, the worse and the worst.”

In the capital, Tehran, reports emerged of some polling places being deserted. “The polling station where I voted today was empty,” said one woman, Mahdieh, 41, who gave only her first name for fear of the authorities. “I voted, without the hijab,” she added, referring to rules requiring women to wear a head covering in Iran.