Oops, we did it again: Washington sets record for worst-ever general election turnout

For the sec­ond time in two years, Wash­ing­ton’s Novem­ber vot­er turnout has sunk to a new low, con­tin­u­ing an alarm­ing state-lev­el trend that began fol­low­ing the end of the last pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cycle in 2012.

The 2017 gen­er­al elec­tion will pass into the his­to­ry books with turnout of 37.1%, which is worse than the pre­vi­ous all-time low of 38.45% set just two years ago. Pri­or to 2015, the record for worst turnout had belonged to 1985, with 40.18%.

Below is a table show­ing turnout by coun­ty, sort­ed from best to worst.

As in 2015, tiny Garfield Coun­ty had the best turnout in the state, with 75.81% of reg­is­tered vot­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing, while Yaki­ma Coun­ty had the worst… 28.09%. Both coun­ties are locat­ed east of the Cas­cade Mountains.

Pierce, the state’s sec­ond largest coun­ty, almost edged out Yaki­ma for the dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion of worst turnout. Only 28.56% of vot­ers there returned ballots.

Pierce’s cringe-wor­thy, embar­rass­ing­ly awful turnout is a major rea­son why Wash­ing­ton as a whole has sunk to a new low this year.

Mighty King Coun­ty was able to bol­ster its turnout from 39.17% in 2015 to 42.69% and out­per­form the state as a whole, pos­si­bly thanks in part to com­pet­i­tive munic­i­pal races in cities like Seat­tle, Belle­vue, and Burien, plus the expen­sive con­test for the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate in the sub­ur­ban 45th District.

But that wasn’t enough to off­set the turnout decline that neg­a­tive­ly affect­ed near­ly all of the state’s pop­u­lous swing coun­ties: Pierce, Sno­homish, Spokane, What­com, Clark, and Thurston. Each fared worse than in 2015.

Kit­sap was the lone major swing coun­ty not to regress, with an ever so slight increase in turnout to 38.48% from 38.18% in 2015.

Turnout in every type of elec­tion in Wash­ing­ton State has been on a down­ward tra­jec­to­ry for over five years, as men­tioned, and shows no signs of abat­ing. Take a look at the fol­low­ing graph, which com­pares elec­tions exclu­sive­ly to oth­er elec­tions of the same type. You can see that turnout is going down across the board.

This is an updat­ed ver­sion of an orig­i­nal NPI graph that we debuted last year on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate to chal­lenge Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State Kim Wyman’s state­ment that turnout is a func­tion of what’s on the bal­lot, a claim she made in a debate with Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger Tina Podlodowski.

What’s on the bal­lot cer­tain­ly influ­ences turnout, but it’s not the only fac­tor, as I wrote last year. Vot­er turnout is declin­ing across the board, regard­less of what’s on the bal­lot, and that’s plain­ly appar­ent when we com­pare elec­tions to oth­er elec­tions of the same type. The trend is unmistakable.

This is a cri­sis for democ­ra­cy that demands bold lead­er­ship. Wash­ing­ton’s Sec­re­tary of State ought to be out front sound­ing the alarm and propos­ing solu­tions. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Kim Wyman still does­n’t seem to think there is a prob­lem. Or if she does, she’s not speak­ing out. She’s miss­ing in action.

There are steps we can take to increase aware­ness of elec­tions, low­er bar­ri­ers to vot­ing, make peo­ple feel more com­fort­able about return­ing their bal­lots, and min­i­mize elec­tion fatigue. Here are some ideas that we believe could help arrest and reverse our ter­ri­ble turnout trend. These should be explored by the Legislature.

Pro­vide pre­paid postage on bal­lot return envelopes

Requir­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans to put a stamp on their bal­lot return envelopes in order to ensure deliv­ery back to the coun­ty elec­tions office is tan­ta­mount to charg­ing a poll tax. The state should make all bal­lot return envelopes stamp-free by pre­pay­ing for postage so that vot­ers don’t need to pay any­thing to send their bal­lot back through the mail if they’re in the Unit­ed States.

Auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion and same day registration

Many peo­ple who are eli­gi­ble to vote don’t get on the rolls in time to par­tic­i­pate in an elec­tion. Their incen­tive to reg­is­ter then dis­ap­pears and they remain unreg­is­tered. Auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion could sub­stan­tial­ly reduce the num­ber of unreg­is­tered vot­ers, while same day reg­is­tra­tion could help those who don’t get auto­mat­i­cal­ly reg­is­tered but want to par­tic­i­pate after bal­lots have been mailed.

Move the vot­er affi­davit to the secu­ri­ty envelope 

Law­mak­ers should give vot­ers greater peace of mind by requir­ing coun­ties to put the manda­to­ry vot­er affi­davits on the secu­ri­ty enve­lope instead of thet exte­ri­or return enve­lope. This would pro­tect the sig­na­tures, tele­phone num­bers, and/or email address­es of any­one who votes by mail from being exposed to pry­ing eyes or imag­ing dur­ing tran­sit through the postal system.

Con­sol­i­date elec­tion windows

Cur­rent state law pro­vides for four elec­tion win­dows in most years: one in Feb­ru­ary, one in April, one in August, and one in Novem­ber. Local gov­ern­ments can place mea­sures on the bal­lot dur­ing any of those win­dows. Law­mak­ers should change the law to get rid of spe­cial elec­tion win­dows in Feb­ru­ary and April and move the August Top Two elec­tion to June, so that no more than two elec­tions are held in non-pres­i­den­tial years. Hold­ing few­er elec­tions would save mon­ey, min­i­mize vot­er fatigue, and poten­tial­ly allow offi­cials to devote more resources and band­width to encour­ag­ing vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion in the remain­ing elections.

Stop hold­ing elec­tions in odd-num­bered years

For much of Wash­ing­ton’s ear­ly his­to­ry, elec­tions were only held in even num­bered years, and turnout was con­sis­tent­ly above 50%. We could go back to that sys­tem, which would be an even more aggres­sive reform than con­sol­i­dat­ing elec­tion win­dows. Elect­ed lead­ers from home rule coun­ties that hold their local elec­tions in odd-num­bered years might not be enam­ored with such a change, but it would save even more mon­ey and min­i­mize vot­er fatigue.

Send vot­ers offi­cial reminders to return their ballots

Instead of rely­ing on cam­paigns, polit­i­cal par­ties and the press to get out the vote in advance of the Elec­tion Day dead­line, elec­tions offi­cials should send vot­ers a reminder about each elec­tion and encour­age them to make a plan to vote if they have not already. Per­haps reminders could be sent via text as a pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment in part­ner­ship with mobile car­ri­ers. Or post­cards could be mailed to vot­ers who haven’t returned a bal­lot with­in the first two weeks of voting.

Bol­ster and expand civics education

Long-term, the best way to address sag­ging vot­er turnout is to change the habits of the next gen­er­a­tion. Research sug­gests that the more edu­cat­ed some­one is, the more like­ly they are to be a reli­able vot­er. The Leg­is­la­ture should require all high schools to pro­vide a full year of com­pre­hen­sive civics edu­ca­tion so all stu­dents learn about the rights and respon­si­bil­i­ties of cit­i­zen­ship and are afford­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties to become involved in pol­i­tics out­side of the class­room. Right now, only half a cred­it is required, and that’s sim­ply not enough. The Leg­is­la­ture should also require that stu­dents be taught about the Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion and state his­to­ry as part of that com­pre­hen­sive civics course, not embed­ded in anoth­er social stud­ies course or taught only at the mid­dle school level.