Although the pro­cess­ing and tal­ly­ing of bal­lots in Wash­ing­ton State’s 2020 Top Two elec­tion has not yet con­clud­ed, it’s clear from the returns that have been tab­u­lat­ed to date that this year’s win­now­ing exer­cise is the high­est turnout Top Two elec­tion in his­to­ry, in addi­tion to com­par­ing favor­ably against the open pri­ma­ry sys­tem and the blan­ket pri­ma­ry sys­tem that came before it.

As of the close of busi­ness on Tues­day, August 11th, 2020, a date falling one week after the bal­lot return dead­line, turnout stood at 52.7%, with an esti­mat­ed 56,137 bal­lots still to be processed. 55.0% of eli­gi­ble vot­ers had returned bal­lots, accord­ing to the Sec­re­tary of State’s bal­lot return sta­tis­tics page.

Those are unheard-of num­bers for a Top Two elec­tion.

No pre­vi­ous Top Two elec­tion in Wash­ing­ton State has seen turnout over fifty per­cent, not even in pres­i­den­tial years. See for your­self with this chart:

In 2008, the first pres­i­den­tial cycle in which the Top Two was used, and also the first pres­i­den­tial cycle in which the Top Two was held in August (it was pre­vi­ous­ly in Sep­tem­ber), turnout was 42.6%. In 2012, turnout was 38.48%.

And in 2016, turnout was only 34.88%.

The turnout we’re see­ing now dwarfs those pre­vi­ous cycles. It’s also high­er than the 2020 pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry in March and high­er than last year’s gen­er­al elec­tion, when vot­ers con­sid­ered Ini­tia­tive 976 and Ref­er­en­dum 88 along with a slew of races at the local lev­el, par­tic­u­lar­ly in major cities like Seattle.

It’s always won­der­ful to see turnout over fifty per­cent — it means that a major­i­ty of those able to par­tic­i­pate returned a bal­lot, and ful­filled their civic duty.

But what accounts for the incred­i­bly high turnout? Recall that 2008 was an epic pres­i­den­tial cycle too, with his­to­ry-mak­ing pres­i­den­tial tick­ets and lots of excite­ment, but the turnout then was­n’t any­where like what it is now.

A few guesses:

• The pan­dem­ic. It’s wreaked hav­oc on sum­mer tra­di­tions, result­ing in the can­cel­la­tion of sea­son­al vaca­tions as well as fes­ti­vals like Seafair. With more Wash­ing­to­ni­ans stay­ing home or clos­er to home this year, there were few­er activ­i­ties com­pet­ing with the Top Two elec­tion for vot­ers’ attention.
• The protests. Equi­ty and social jus­tice are on peo­ple’s minds. The graph­ic video depict­ing the mur­der of George Floyd, along with the oth­er recent mur­ders of Black peo­ple like Bre­on­na Tay­lor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Manuel Ellis, have inspired peo­ple to march and write and speak out for a soci­ety in which Black Lives Mat­ter, as well as Indige­nous lives.
• Fired up par­ti­sans. Each major par­ty’s base is clear­ly eager for the com­ing autumn elec­tion, which we have been build­ing towards ever since the last one end­ed. Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers bad­ly want to get rid of the Trump/Pence regime and keep state gov­ern­ment sci­ence-ori­ent­ed under Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, while Repub­li­can vot­ers want the opposite.
• Vote at home. In Wash­ing­ton State, you don’t have to stand in line to vote. Your bal­lot comes to you and you have three weeks to fill it out and return it, either to a post office or a drop box. Our sys­tem is as close to virus-proof as it gets. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans were able to vote in this elec­tion with­out hav­ing to run the risk of expo­sure to COVID-19, and they took advantage.

To expand a bit on that last point: it’s impor­tant to remem­ber that Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors have spent the last few years work­ing to strength­en vote at home in a num­ber of ways. Laws were passed requir­ing more drop box­es and pre­paid postage on bal­lot return envelopes, low­er­ing the bar­ri­er to return­ing a ballot.

(In addi­tion, the Leg­is­la­ture enact­ed auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, same day vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, and pre­reg­is­tra­tion for young vot­ers, mea­sures that expand the vot­er rolls as opposed to shrink­ing them, which Repub­li­cans are tying to do elsewhere.)

That work has paid off. Peo­ple were moti­vat­ed to vote this sum­mer, and hope­ful­ly those who were not pre­vi­ous­ly in the habit of doing so dis­cov­ered that it’s real­ly not that dif­fi­cult to fill out a bal­lot and get it back to elec­tions offi­cials. Wash­ing­ton has made it about as easy as it could be to vote.

Democ­ra­cy requires par­tic­i­pa­tion. The more of us who vote, the bet­ter. This Amer­i­can exper­i­ment that began sev­er­al hun­dred years ago and was expand­ed with many hard won advances in suf­frage can only endure if we vote.

I hope this is just the begin­ning. I hope to see a new gen­er­al elec­tion turnout record set this Novem­ber with over 90% par­tic­i­pa­tion in all Pacif­ic North­west states: Wash­ing­ton, Ore­gon, and Ida­ho. We have nev­er seen 90% par­tic­i­pa­tion before. It would be won­der­ful to see it this year for the first time in our history.