WASHINGTON — Election season is here in D.C. With the primary election underway, let's take a look at voter turnout over the past two D.C. elections involving mayoral races compared to data of the current city election.
As of June 19, data shows there have been a total of 63,383 votes cast for the 2022 primary election, according to the DC Board of Elections (DCBOE). Mail-In Ballots that were received by USPS made up 30,221 of the votes. Mail-In ballots that were received by ballot drop box made up 21,157 of the votes and 12,005 votes were from early voting centers.
In 2018, during the last primary that included a mayoral election in the District, a total of 89,513 people voted in the city, which is only 18.66% of the total registered voters in the city. Data shows that the majority of the votes were cast on election day (78.23%) and only 16.19% of votes were cast before election day. Absentee and special ballots made up 5.58% of the total number of votes for that election, DCBOE shows.
The number of people in the city who are registered increased for each primary election including a mayoral race in D.C. In 2014, a total of 369,037 people were registered to vote in D.C. That number grew to 479,723 in 2018. According to the D.C. Board of Elections Monthly Report of Voter Registration Statistics Citywide Registration Summary for May 2022, there are a total of 489,109 people registered to vote in the District. This means thus far 12.95% of registered voters have voted in the current primary election.
Since the 2020 presidential primary election, there has been an increase in registered voters. For the 2020 primary election, there were only 410,260 people registered to vote in the District. For that same election, a total of 114,890 votes were cast.
Despite there being increases in voter registration and turnout, some areas of the city still are registering and voting at lesser rates. Wards 7 and 8 still have some of the lowest voter registration and turnout rates in the city and that trend appears to be holding true based on current data for the 2022 primary election.