Washington’s general election voter turnout is low so far, but not as bad as 2015 or 2017

Few­er than one in five Wash­ing­to­ni­ans have cast a bal­lot so far in this year’s Novem­ber gen­er­al elec­tion, but vot­er turnout is at least on track to sur­pass the low marks set dur­ing the last two local elec­tion cycles, when Wash­ing­ton repeat­ed­ly set new records for the worst gen­er­al elec­tion vot­er turnout in state history.

At around this junc­ture two years ago, statewide turnout was just 16.8%. And on the day before Elec­tion Day four years ago, turnout was 17.4%.

This year, it’s 19.4%, with about a day and a half left to vote.

Small coun­ties are once again the turnout lead­ers. Tiny Colum­bia Coun­ty leads with 35.9% turnout, fol­lowed by Fer­ry, Lin­coln, and Pend Oreille Coun­ties. West of the Cas­cades, Jef­fer­son is the turnout leader, with 28.5% of bal­lots returned.

Of the larg­er coun­ties, Spokane and What­com are both clos­ing in on 25%, while Pierce and Sno­homish are lag­ging behind. Sno­homish has the sec­ond worst turnout in the state (at 15.9%) and Pierce has the fourth worst turnout (16.2%).

King Coun­ty is doing mod­est­ly bet­ter, with 18.9% of bal­lots returned.

Here are the num­bers for every sin­gle county:

Last year, Wash­ing­to­ni­ans turned out in force in the 2018 midterms, arrest­ing and revers­ing a near­ly decade old decline in vot­er turnout in every type of election.

But this year, we’re back to strug­gling to sur­pass fifty per­cent turnout.

What can we do? Every­one read­ing this post has an oblig­a­tion to do our part to boost vot­er turnout. That means going above and beyond vot­ing our­selves. It means check­ing up on friends and fam­i­ly and ask­ing them to do their civic duty.

There are no “off” years… every elec­tion year is an “on” year… so ban­ish that term from your vocab­u­lary and make sure peo­ple you know have voted.

We are blessed to live in a demo­c­ra­t­ic repub­lic where we get to choose our lead­ers as opposed to an author­i­tar­i­an regime where we have no voice and no vote in our gov­er­nance. Vot­ing is an impor­tant oblig­a­tion of citizenship.

There are no accept­able excus­es for not vot­ing, espe­cial­ly not when three weeks are pro­vid­ed to fill out and return bal­lots, which is the case here in Washington.

So please: Talk to your col­leagues, fam­i­ly, and friends about tomorrow’s elec­tion. Ask them if they’ve vot­ed. If they have, thank them.

And if they haven’t, offer to help them make a plan for vot­ing. Research shows that peo­ple are more like­ly to vote when they make a plan to vote.