Turnout abysmal across Washington State with twenty-four hours left to vote

Ear­li­er this month, bal­lots for the August Top Two elec­tion (which con­cludes tomor­row) were mailed to 3,850,467 vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton State. Regret­tably, only
541,577 have been returned thus far… an abysmal turnout rate of just 14.1%.

No coun­ty elec­tions divi­sion has seen a major­i­ty of bal­lots issued come back, although some small coun­ties have had about a third of their bal­lots come back.

Tiny Garfield Coun­ty is cur­rent­ly the turnout leader with 36%, fol­lowed by lit­tle Lin­coln Coun­ty at 33% and itty bit­ty Ska­ma­nia Coun­ty at 32%.

The larg­er coun­ties are all at under 20% turnout. Pierce is real­ly lag­ging, with just 10.5% of bal­lots returned. Sno­homish is sit­ting at 12% and King Coun­ty is at 13.7%. Kit­sap is far­ing some­what bet­ter with turnout of 18.8%, while What­com is at 18.9%. Spokane is at 13.9% and Clark is at 12.3%.

Unless a lot more peo­ple vote over the next twen­ty-four hours, there’s a very real pos­si­bil­i­ty Wash­ing­ton could set a new record for low statewide turnout in a Top Two elec­tion, which would be a dis­ap­point­ing development.

Two years ago, in 2015, turnout was a measly 24.37% statewide… less than a fourth of bal­lots came back. That was a decline from 2013, when Top Two turnout was 25.99%, and 2011, when Top Two turnout was 29.54%.

Turnout isn’t just declin­ing in local elec­tions, either. It is declin­ing in every type of elec­tion, which is very wor­ry­ing. We talked a lot about this trend last year, when Tina Pod­lodows­ki (now the Chair of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty) was chal­leng­ing Kim Wyman for Sec­re­tary of State.

Wyman has said repeat­ed­ly turnout is cycli­cal and depen­dent on what’s on the bal­lot, but as we illus­trat­ed, turnout has been get­ting worse across the board, and she has yet to offer a plan for arrest­ing and revers­ing the trend.

The much-hyped 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, which Wyman antic­i­pat­ed would be a bonan­za, did not devi­ate from the trend. Turnout statewide was only 78.76% — down from 81.25% in 2012, 84.61% in 2008, and 82.19% in 2004.

There are many pos­si­ble expla­na­tions for the declin­ing vot­er turnout: the tim­ing of elec­tions (Top Two elec­tions held in August have his­tor­i­cal­ly had lousy par­tic­i­pa­tion), increas­ing indif­fer­ence and apa­thy among the elec­torate, and bar­ri­ers to vot­ing (like lack of drop box­es), to name a few.

King Coun­ty Elec­tions twice exper­i­ment­ed with pre­paid postage on bal­lot return envelopes ear­li­er this year, seek­ing to remove one bar­ri­er to vot­ing, and saw an increase in turnout. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, pre­paid postage was not pro­vid­ed on return envelopes for this elec­tion. We wish that it had been.

If you’re a read­er of this blog, chances are you’ve already vot­ed and dis­charged your civic duty. But have you checked in on your friends and fam­i­ly and made sure that they have returned *their* bal­lots? If not, please do so tonight!