Tag Archives: Ballotpedia

2022 Midterm Turnout Trends

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By Jim Ellis — Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023

Elections

A Look at the Midterm Numbers — Particularly in low turnout elections, the voter participation figure tends to be definitive as to which party commands the final result. Now that election statistics are final for the 2022 election, we can better analyze the voting patterns and compare them to past trends.

2018 proved to be the highest turnout midterm election in history. In that year, more than 114 million people cast their ballots. The 2022 midterm is now second highest even though voter turnout dropped seven percent from four years previous. In November, just under 106 million total votes were recorded.

According to the Ballotpedia data organization in their state-by-state turnout recap, 50.33 percent of the eligible voting population participated in 2018 and a commensurate 46.76 percentage is recorded for 2022. By contrast, Ballotpedia finds that 66.8 percent of the eligible voting population participated in the 2020 presidential election. Based upon their calculations, 2020 saw the highest eligible voter turnout in the 21st century.

The Ballotpedia data tells us that the 2022 election’s top five turnout states were Oregon (61.51 percent of the state’s eligible voter figure), Maine (61.46 percent), Minnesota (61.01 percent), Wisconsin (60.1 percent), and Michigan (59.31 percent).

Conversely, the lowest five turnout states were Tennessee (31.34 percent of the state’s eligible voter figure), Mississippi (32.89 percent), West Virginia (35.66 percent), Alabama (37.74 percent), and Oklahoma (40.11 percent).

Three of the top turnout states saw a much higher ratio of registered voters casting their ballots when compared to the eligible figures. Maine’s registered voter turnout soared to 75.3 percent, Wisconsin recorded 75.1 percent, and Minnesota reached 69.4 percent. Michigan was one of just 11 states where 2022 turnout exceeded that of 2018.

Except for Tennessee and Alabama, the lowest turnout states also produced substantial increases in registered voter turnout when compared to their eligible voter number. Oklahoma rose to a 50.23 percent participation rate from the registered voter population; Mississippi 44.3 percent; and West Virginia 40.8 percent. Even among registered voters, the Tennessee and Alabama totals failed to reach the 40 percent plateau.

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The Decisions Within the Election

By Jim Ellis

Oct. 30, 2020 — The 2020 election cycle has been unique in many ways, but a series of significant decisions, typically through judicial rulings, will likely have a long-lasting effect upon the way the various states administer their elections.

Expanded early voting is likely here to stay. With more than 66 million people already voting through Wednesday, we can expect the states to continue with this relatively new process. Currently, only four states do not have some form of early voting.

Whether we see a continuance of the post-election ballot reception period may be another matter. There is likely to be controversy over this practice that 21 states will feature beginning next week. If the presidential race is close and gets bogged down in the political overtime, the negative aspects of counting votes that come in after the election could come to the forefront.

We have also seen changes in some states, most of which came in previous years, over their primary voting procedures. With reapportionment and redistricting on the political horizon, we are seeing states place measures on Tuesday’s ballot that could bring even more change to electoral systems around the country.

According to research presented from the University of Virginia’s Dr. Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball publication and the Ballotpedia organization, voters in nine states will be deciding measures that could alter even further the way future elections are conducted. As we have seen develop, states adopting changes lead to further states following suit. Therefore, if many of the measures receive voter approval Tuesday, other states may also begin adopting some of these practices.

We start with states potentially changing their primary systems to a variation of the jungle primary system. Currently, Louisiana, where the procedure began, California, and Washington use the top-two qualifying system. In those states, all candidates are placed on the same primary ballot and the top two vote-getters advance to the general election irrespective of political party affiliation. Louisiana can elect a candidate outright if he or she receives majority support in the primary election because the state schedules the primary concurrently with the national general election.

Voters in Florida have a ballot proposition to decide if they want their state to adopt the jungle primary system. The Sunshine State voters are also considering a proposition that would allow changes voted through initiative only to take effect if the measure passes in two general elections. Therefore, should this latter idea attain approval, it, and all of the other passed measures, would be delayed until they again pass in a subsequent election.

Alaska voters are looking at another variation of the jungle primary. They are considering a measure where the primary would produce four finishers, thus setting up multi-candidate general elections.

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The Roy Moore Polling

By Jim Ellis

Left: Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore (R) | Right: Ex-US Attorney Doug Jones (D)

Nov. 16, 2017 — Last evening’s political news featured heavy coverage of a new National Republican Senatorial Committee poll that produced bad news for Alabama GOP special Senate nominee Roy Moore, but not enough information was released to determine the reliability aspect. In fact, the NRSC didn’t even release the name of the polling company with which they contracted to conduct the survey.

This is significant because their finding that Democrat Doug Jones is leading Judge Moore, 51-39 percent, is clearly out of line with every other poll taken in the corresponding time frame. It is also interesting that they would even release such a poll considering the Republican candidate is doing so badly. It does, however, justify their previous position of cutting the Moore Campaign from additional funding because of the sexual impropriety allegations against the candidate that has dominated recent news coverage.

Below are the post-scandal publicly reported surveys as complied by the Ballotpedia website:

• National Republican Senatorial Committee (Nov. 12-13)
No pollster credited
Jones 51%; Moore 39%
500 Sample

• Fox10 (Mobile) (Nov. 13)
News Strategy Research
Moore 49%; Jones 43%
3,000 Sample (Automated)

• Emerson College Polling Society (Nov. 9-11)
Moore 55%; Jones 45%
600 Polling Sample

• JMC Analytics & Polling (Nov. 9-11)
Jones 46%; Moore 42%
575 Sample

• Decision Desk HQ (Nov. 9)
Moore 46%; Jones 46%
515 Sample

As we can see, the NRSC poll returns the most inconsistent results in comparison to the other available data during the same time frame; the period just after the Moore sexual scandal broke.

Additionally, because the NRSC did not release the name of their pollster or the survey methodology, not enough information exists to determine if their data are skewed in any particular manner.

The lack of available information does not necessarily mean that the Senatorial Committee’s results are inaccurate. It is curious, however, that the other results — and, all have larger sample sizes than the reported NRSC calling universe — finds much different ballot test margins.

Interestingly, the Fox10 poll from a local Mobile television affiliate, which is the latest released survey prior to the NRSC study, and the Emerson College Polling Society find the complete opposite result and their methodologies utilize much larger sample sizes within the studied polling grouping. The Fox10 3,000-person sampling universe clearly suggests that the questionnaire responses were obtained through an automated device, but such does not necessarily mean this poll is less accurate than the live operator polls.

The Alabama race continues to deteriorate, and it is becoming more evident that Jones is now in a strong position to win. But, despite all the negative news coverage, this phantom NRSC poll is the only one that shows him trailing badly.

The other survey to find him dropping behind, from JMC Analytics, featured a sampling universe where 56 percent of the respondents are female, a potential skew in Jones’ favor since this subset broke his way, 46-40 percent. In comparison, men favored the Democrat only 46-45 percent in the JMC crosstabs. Therefore, with a sample where the Democratic-leaning female sector was over-sampled by approximately five percentage points, correcting this skew likely brings the Jones’ 46-42 percent ballot test result back into a tied range.

The NRSC results and partial poll release is intriguing to say the least. Hopefully, we will see more substantiation of their data later today.

The Race Tightens — or Does It?

By Jim Ellis

July 1, 2016 — New recently released national and specific state polls are providing differing views about the presidential campaign’s current status. Though the conclusions vary among the publicly released surveys in terms of margin, all find Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump nationally and in the key states. It the modern political era the early election cycle has always favored the Democratic presidential candidate so the fact that Clinton has the initial advantage is not unusual or unexpected.

Quinnipiac University (June 21-27; 1,610 US registered voters) just released their latest national survey, and find Clinton’s advantage over Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson has slipped to just 39-37-8 percent, an indication that the gap is closing even though many establishment Republican leaders continue to make anti-Trump public statements.

The new Fox News poll (June 26-28; 1,017 US registered voters) finds Clinton to be in a bit stronger position than does Quinnipiac, however. Fox forecasts a 41-36-10 percent Clinton edge over Trump and Johnson.

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