South Sound Times

Lewis County was among the top ten counties in the state for highest voter turnout percentage in Washington’s 2020 primary election, according to The Daily Chronicle.

Lewis County currently has 51,221 registered voters, of which 60.7% turned out to vote, making it the county with the tenth highest voter turnout percentage out of the state’s 39 counties.

“Usually the turnout is anywhere from 35 to 40 percent, historically,” for an even-year primary election, Lewis County Election Supervisor Heather Boyer told the Daily Chronicle. “So it’s a little higher than we were expecting.”

“But also we have a lot more candidates for the governor’s race,” she added. “And it’s a pretty contentious election cycle so it’s hard to anticipate what you’re going to get back.”

The recent primary election saw the highest voter turnout for the event since 1964 when a little more than 55% of Washington’s 4.6 million registered voters turned out, according to Secretary of State spokesperson Kylee Zabel.

In 1964, 56% percent of Washingtonians, or 841,932 registered voters cast ballots, Zabel wrote in an email to the Daily Chronicle. 

For context, in the 2018 primary election, 40.2% of Lewis County’s registered voters cast ballots which was close to the state average turnout of 40.8%. In 2016, which was the previous presidential election year, primary voter turnout in Lewis County was 35.2% which was comparable to the state average of 34.8%.

In general, smaller, rural counties had higher voter turnout percentages than larger, urban counties. Ten of the 11 counties that had a voter turnout percentage of 60% or higher had fewer than 60,000 registered voters and five counties had fewer than 15,000 registered voters.

More results from from Washington’s 2020 primary election can be found here.