PNWcurrents Episode III is live: This month, we discuss voter turnout and election fatigue

Decades of data demon­strate that vot­er turnout tends to be high­est in pres­i­den­tial years and low­est in odd-num­bered years.

In many juris­dic­tions, this is when local elec­tions are held.

This year showed a con­tin­u­a­tion of that trend. In this mon­th’s August Top Two elec­tion, vot­er turnout end­ed up at 29.72%. That’s not the worst it’s ever been, but it’s a far cry from the robust par­tic­i­pa­tion our democ­ra­cy needs to be healthy.

Less than a year ago, Wash­ing­ton saw some of the best turnouts it has ever seen, with a record set in the August 2020 Top Two elec­tion and a near-record set in the Novem­ber 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion. The huge falloff from pres­i­den­tial to local years is a known prob­lem that we’ve been liv­ing with for a decade.

The sim­plest per­ma­nent solu­tion to it is phas­ing out odd year elec­tions, a cause NPI has been work­ing on in the Wash­ing­ton State Leg­is­la­ture for sev­er­al years.

But there are oth­er mea­sures we could be pur­su­ing as well.

Boost­ing vot­er turnout and com­bat­ing elec­tion fatigue is the top­ic of this month’s episode of PNWcur­rents, NPI’s unique­ly region­al pod­cast, which I am thrilled and hon­ored to host. You can lis­ten to it on demand using the play­er below. You can also down­load it to lis­ten any­where using your favorite pod­cast­ing app or service.

Want to read the tran­script and get more details on the episode’s production?

Just launch the ded­i­cat­ed page for Episode III!

Episode III: Boost­ing Vot­er Turnout and Com­bat­ing Elec­tion Fatigue

Pre­sent­ed in a pan­el for­mat, PNWcur­rents brings togeth­er thinkers, activists, elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and top­i­cal experts to have con­struc­tive con­ver­sa­tions about local and region­al pol­i­tics, pol­i­cy, major issues, and ideas that impact the Pacif­ic North­west. It’s a forum for per­cep­tive dis­course like no other.

Join­ing me for Episode III are:

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mia Gregerson, a mem­ber of the Wash­ing­ton House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives rep­re­sent­ing the 33rd Dis­trict. Mia is the for­mer Chair of the State Gov­ern­ment and Trib­al Rela­tions Com­mit­tee, and was the prime spon­sor of House Bill 2529 in 2020, a bill that sought to phase out odd-year elec­tions. Mia is plan­ning on rein­tro­duc­ing this legislation.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ilana Rubel, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Minor­i­ty Leader of the Ida­ho House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, where she has served for eight years. She recent­ly intro­duced H 55 to the Ida­ho leg­is­la­ture, a bill that would pro­vide for auto­mat­ic vot­er reg­is­tra­tion at driver’s licens­ing offices.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dan Ray­field, a mem­ber of the Ore­gon House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives rep­re­sent­ing House Dis­trict 16, where he has served since 2014. Dan has worked on sev­er­al suc­cess­ful pieces of vot­er-friend­ly leg­is­la­tion, includ­ing Oregon’s 2016 Motor Vot­er Act and, this year, House Bill 3291, which lets vot­ers return a bal­lot using the Postal Ser­vice through Elec­tion Day by elim­i­nat­ing the require­ment that bal­lots be in elec­tion offi­cials’ cus­tody by 8 PM on Elec­tion Night.

Because PNWcur­rents is a pod­cast avail­able on demand, you can lis­ten to episodes any­time: while gar­den­ing, while jog­ging, while run­ning errands, while work­ing on a home improve­ment project, or on your way to drop off your bal­lot in an upcom­ing local election…the choice is yours!

Pro­duc­ing PNWcur­rents requires mon­ey as well as time and energy.

We think it’s worth it, and we hope you will, too.

We invite you to sup­port the pro­duc­tion of PNWcur­rents by becom­ing a mem­ber of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute if you aren’t already!

You can donate month­ly as a Com­mon­wealth Bond­hold­er, or annually.

Thank you for lis­ten­ing, and I hope you enjoy Episode III!