Idaho voter turnout likely 75-80 percent
Counties around Idaho are posting some amazingly high turnout figures for Tuesday’s election, but it turns out those aren’t actually the final numbers – because they don’t take into account same-day voter registrations. That means the county figures – 88 percent in Ada County, 87 percent in Kootenai County and 90 percent in Bonner County, for example – are comparing the number of ballots cast to the number registered by the registration cutoff on Oct. 14. But Idahoans who haven’t registered by that date can register at the polls.
When those Election Day registration numbers are added in, the percentage-of-registered-voters turnout figures fall. In Ada County, Chief Deputy Clerk Phil McGrane estimates that it’ll end up between 75 and 78 percent. “The percentage turnout should still be, at least in Ada County, very high,” he said. Ada saw particular growth in early voting, which swelled from 19,000 in 2012 to more than 47,000 this time.
Statewide, Chief Deputy Secretary of State Tim Hurst said, “The main thing I can tell you is we had a record turnout of voters.” There were roughly 695,000 ballots cast in the presidential race; in 2012 in Idaho, there were about 666,000, and in 2008, 667,000. In the last two presidential elections, Idaho’s seen roughly 118,000 voters register at the polls on Election Day.
“I’m guessing it’s around 75 percent turnout,” Hurst said. “(Secretary of State) Lawerence (Denney) is saying it’s closer to 80. We won’t know until we actually get the Election Day registration numbers back from the counties.”
As of Nov. 1, Idaho had about 813,000 people registered to vote, Hurst said. He made his 75 percent estimate by adding the typical same-day registration figure to that. “But those are guesses,” he said. “It was great – it was high.”
Four years ago, Idaho had 74 percent turnout in the presidential election.
Around the state, ballot-counting was slowed this time by the high number of write-in candidates. There were 37 candidates who registered as write-ins for president. Plus, there were write-in candidates for local offices like sheriff in some parts of the state.
Bonner County, for example, had three Soil and Water Conservation District commissioner positions for which no one filed, that had to be decided entirely by counting write-ins. “People have to look at ‘em,” Hurst said.
