WA voter turnout dropped, especially among youngest voters

The 2024 election saw lower turnout across the nation, in every region and in many demographic groups. In Washington, the drop in participation was especially pronounced among young people.

About 64% of registered voters 18 to 24 cast ballots this year — a decrease of about 8.5 percentage points from 2020.

Not a youth-only issue

Older age groups saw progressively smaller decreases. Washington turnout dropped by about seven percentage points for people 25 to 34; a little under seven points for people 35 to 44; six points for people 45 to 54 and five points for people 55 to 64.

Eighty-nine percent of voters older than 65 returned their ballots this year — a decrease of only about two percentage points compared to 2020.

Younger folks almost always vote in lower numbers than older age groups, but this year’s turnout decline made that even more noticeable.

“I think a lot of people expected those people who showed up during 2020 to keep showing up, and it looks like that just didn’t happen,” said Tim O’Neal, a senior research analyst with the Washington Community Alliance who studies election data.

A lack of enthusiasm

Costa Aristedes, 18, of Seattle, voted for the first time this year. He said he hadn’t heard his peers express much enthusiasm for either candidate, but he still had hope for the future. He voted for Kamala Harris, and was hoping she would take steps to protect reproductive freedom and trans rights.

Each ballot includes a return envelope, ballot, Voter’s Pamphlet and the newly designed “I voted” sticker. (Caroline Walker Evans for Cascade PBS)

Ember Chow, 24, a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, voted early this year. In the days leading up to Election Day, she tried taking her mind off election anxiety by phone banking and trying to get friends to vote. On Nov. 5, she was at a ballot drop box in the U District dropping off a friend’s ballot.

“I got him to vote,” Chow said.

Chow said she was especially concerned about LGBTQ+ rights. On Election Day, she was nervous about the prospect of a Trump victory.

“I’ve been having a bad feeling about it for days,” Chow said. “I don’t know, I can’t shake that feeling.”

Precise data on voter turnout won’t be final until the election is certified on Nov. 26. O’Neal said there will likely be lots of analysis digging into which groups specifically showed up in lower numbers. It’s possible that young people felt they were rallying around a cause in 2020 and “didn’t really feel it this time around,” he said.

As of Nov. 13, turnout for all age groups in Washington was 79.09% this year, about 5.7 percentage points lower than 2020. (The number may rise a tiny bit in coming days as late votes and ballots mailed from overseas are processed, but it likely won’t change much.)

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Check out the Seattle’s Child post “A grandfather’s voice” about a grandfather who made it his priority to get the young people in his life make voting their priority. His message of “Your vote is your voice” is an important one for kids to hear starting in middle school.

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Late votes

Comparing this year to the last presidential election is complicated. Turnout was at a near-record high in 2020. It’s unclear exactly why, but the pandemic and unique political climate appear to have both played a big role.

“Folks were kind of a captive audience,” said Halei Watkins, communications manager for King County Elections. “They were at home. They were thinking about the election, hearing about the election all the time.”

This year’s voter turnout trends are much more similar to those of the 2016 presidential election, which saw 78.76% turnout across all age groups.

Was 2020 an outlier year?

If you consider 2020 an outlier and instead compare this year’s election to 2016, turnout for younger voters actually increased. It was about 5.2 percentage points higher for voters 18 to 24 and two points higher for those 25 to 34. It was about the same or slightly lower for older age groups.

Washingtonians didn’t just vote in lower numbers this year compared to the last presidential election — they also voted a lot later. Turnout was at 35% one week before this Election Day, compared to nearly 53% in 2020.

There was a “huge first weekend of voting” in 2020 that simply didn’t happen this year, Watkins said.

“This time around, we saw really steady returns, but we didn’t really have that early huge bump,” Watkins said. “It ended up being a little quieter for us than we were expecting.”

King County elections officials collected more than 200,000 ballots from drop boxes during the first weekend of voting in 2020, compared to about 40,000 during the same period this year, Watkins said.

O’Neal said there was a lot of messaging from community organizers encouraging people to vote early in 2020 that wasn’t as present this year. There was also publicized concern about the postal service being overwhelmed that wasn’t as much a factor this time. It’s possible that people just didn’t feel the same sense of urgency in 2024, O’Neal said.

This year’s election saw many county election offices crowded with a surge of last-minute in-person voters. Spokane officials reported atypically long lines that left some voters casting their ballots past 10 p.m. Officials in Yakima had similar problems. (Voting technically ends at 8 p.m. on election night, but people are still allowed to vote if they’re in line by the deadline.)

Watkins said King County served nearly 15,000 people at in-person vote centers on Election Day — about 6,000 more than officials were projecting. Many people were there to register to vote, while others came to update their addresses or get replacement ballots.

In-person voting increased

“Folks were clearly ready to come in person,” Watkins said. “It was good to see so many folks in person, we just weren’t expecting to see quite so many.”

Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey has been in office for seven presidential elections. In every past election, he said, there was a line of maybe 20 or 25 people at the office by 8 p.m. on election night. This year? It was closer to 400 or 500.

“We were here until 11:30 that evening taking care of everyone,” Kimsey said.

Nearly 40,000 ballots — about 1% of the total — are at risk of being rejected this year, mostly because of mismatched or missing signatures. Watkins said people should track the status of their ballot at VoteWa.gov. Voters have until 4:00 pm on November 25 to “cure” their ballots and make sure their vote is counted.

A small number of ballots across the state are being rejected for issues unrelated to signatures. Some were turned in after the deadline. At least 219 people turned in empty envelopes with the ballot itself missing.