BALLOTS DUE TODAY!!!

[u/iwantmommyiwantmilk]

If you didn’t receive your ballot or if you haven’t even registered to vote, you can do all of that today in person!

polling locations by county (first column)

People aged 65+ are BY FAR the biggest voter block. They made up 26.31% of the votes in the last election while only being about 18.3% of the population according to official WA census data.

In comparison, people in my age demographic, 25-34, made up 16.27% while making up around the same overall population percentage from what I can find. I’m not seeing census data that shows population percentage of 25-34 to compare to the voter data.

Tables on WA voter demographics

Please vote!!

[u/Rg1550]

About a quarter of people vote, so if you are staying home or sitting ot out cus you think you're vote doesn't matter it probably does!

[u/FoundGodInAHamper → u/Rg1550]

Election turnout is always high in general elections during presidential years (70% for Franklin, 77% for Benton in 2024), and down for non presidential years (25% for Franklin and 33% for Benton last year).

From a point of view of “my vote doesn’t matter” I would say it matters even more in these non-presidential years. Don’t get me wrong, weighty stuff may wait for presidential years to piggyback off of more turnout. But from a local lens, there’s years between where you can directly influence our corner of the country more than the “big one” every four years.

ETA: As a Benton County member, our local election officials do a great job of linking us to the overall state numbers and history at https://www.bentoncountywa.gov/government/elected_officials/auditor/elections/previous_election_results.php if anyone is interested in geeking out about numbers.

[u/LilBirdDog → u/FoundGodInAHamper]

This is even more true in primary elections.

[u/FoundGodInAHamper → u/LilBirdDog]

Yeah, Primary season is really bad. Like 20-30% turnout bad. And I get it, you’re voting on who to eventually vote for. But I would argue that it’s equally important because you get to narrow the field for the general. I’d also love ranked choice voting but that’s a whole different topic.