State Announces Voter Turnout of About 64%

Turnout in last week’s presidential election will probably end up totaling between 64% and 65% of the state’s registered voters, a record low, Secretary of State Bill Jones said Wednesday.

Jones said an official total won’t be available until all 58 counties complete their final count, which is not required until Dec. 4.

But he said estimates of the remaining uncounted absentee ballots will raise participation to about 10 million of the state’s 15.6 million registered voters.

That turnout would be slightly better than the 60.45% turnout for the 1994 election for governor, but is far below the normal turnout in presidential elections.

The previous low for president was 71.68% in 1912; the high was 88.38% in 1964. The 1992 presidential election turnout was 75.32%.

Jones said one reason for declining turnout figures is the estimated 2 million or more names on voter rolls of persons who have died, moved away or re-registered under different names.

“If we had clean [registration] rolls, this would not be the lowest turnout by about four or five points,” Jones said.

He said he is implementing changes in registration procedures, such as cross-referencing to driver’s license numbers, to eliminate duplicate registrations.