Election turnout just topped 70%

The 2022 General Election was certified by Kittitas County on November 29th, 2022. The state will certify the election on December 8th. This year, 29,846 ballots were issued in Kittitas County, 21,177 ballots were returned and 20,939 voters had their ballots counted. 238 ballots were challenged (1.12%), a huge improvement over 2019 when the challenge rate in our county was 1.65%. That means about 8500 citizens – for whatever reason – did not vote. 11 other counties in Washington state had higher turnout than Kittitas and 27 counties had lower turnout. The state average was 63.82%.

In 2022, there were 4,000 MORE registered voters in 2022 over 2018. Please NOTE: the graphic below (from the Secretary of State website) shows numbers for 21 days after the election and not the final numbers as certified by SOS (on December 8).

Mid-Term Election Comparison: 2018 vs 2022

Turnout results by age are shown in the graphic below. While voter turnout in odd-years is always lower than in even years, in our post discussing last year’s turnout using a similar age graphic breakdown, it is interesting to note that younger voters turned out in higher numbers relative to older voters.

Most of us only vote during Presidential election years. But we have recently done better in the even-year elections, turning out 75% or higher, so this year’s 70.16% rate is disappointing. The last time even-year voting fell below 70% was eight years ago in 2014.

If you are a registered voter who chose not to vote in the 2022 election (or any election in the last few years), please let us know why in the comments below. What information do you need? What gets in the way of your voting? How can we help?