Tag: Voter Turnout

Read NPI founder Andrew Villeneuve’s pre­pared remarks in sup­port of House Bill 1932, which would empow­er local gov­ern­ments in Wash­ing­ton to move their elec­tions to even-num­bered years.

NPI’s pro­pos­al to allow cities and towns to move their reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled elec­tions to even years if they want is draw­ing a lot of inter­est in the wake of the 2023 gen­er­al elec­tion, which saw the worst turnout in state history. 

Novem­ber 28th, 2023 was the dead­line for coun­ties to cer­ti­fy their returns in the Novem­ber 2023 gen­er­al elec­tion. Statewide turnout will pass into the his­to­ry books at 36.41% for this year. That’s the low­est Wash­ing­ton has seen since record­keep­ing began.

Wash­ing­ton State is at real risk of set­ting a new record for the worst gen­er­al elec­tion turnout in state history. 

King Coun­ty Elec­tions staff had hoped that coun­ty­wide turnout would sur­pass 35%, but it has stalled out at around 30%, and it looks like it will be below what it was in 2021 and 2019.

Repub­li­can Rea­gan Dunn asks rhetor­i­cal­ly if peo­ple will pay atten­tion to coun­ty races if they’re in even years. The answer is yes, they will… because coun­ty gov­er­nance and coun­ty-lev­el top­ics will be part of the mix in years when peo­ple are more attuned to pol­i­tics and when the medi­a’s polit­i­cal cov­er­age is more robust.