The 2016 election had all the hallmarks of producing one of the highest voter turnouts in recent memory: the first female presidential candidate of a major party; an opponent who made a name for himself on reality television; and a long, boisterous, contentious election season.
It turns out, though, that Montgomery County voter turnout was, in a word, meh.
The current official turnout total is at about 64 percent of the county’s registered voters, according to county Board of Elections records. In 2008, the last time Americans voted in an open presidential race, voter turnout was 79 percent. In 2012, voter turnout was 82 percent.
“You can’t speculate why people vote or don’t vote,” elections board President Jim Shalleck said Wednesday. “There’s been a lot of commentary on the tenor of the race. That might have caused the decline. … Each election has its own personality and a lot of people were not happy with the nature of this election.”
Tuesday’s turnout figure is likely to increase. The board must complete its tally of 62,676 absentee ballots and about 12,741 provisional ballots, elections spokeswoman Marjorie Roher said. Not all absentee ballots are expected to be turned in and not all provisional ballots—given to voters where there’s a question on whether they’re allowed to vote—will be counted, Roher and Shalleck said. Even so, they each estimated the turnout could reach about 70 percent.
“Certainly, we didn’t have the turnout on election day that we expected,” Roher said.
According to elections board figures, about 420,000 registered voters out of a total of about 656,000 cast ballots Tuesday.
About 24 percent of the county’s electorate voted in the eight days of early voting before Election Day. Polling places saw long lines early on Election Day. But in years past, voters would descend on polling places after work; this year those lines didn’t materialize, according to elections officials.
