More than Half of Montgomery County Voters Turned Out for Tuesday’s Election

More than 358,000 voted, which was higher than in the last two midterm elections

File photo

Montgomery County voters went to the polls Tuesday in numbers that exceeded that of midterm elections in 2010 and 2014. According to unofficial results from the Montgomery County Board of Elections that were recorded at 11:42 p.m. Tuesday, 358,879 voters had cast their ballot, for a turnout rate of 54.8 percent. The report was taken with 266 of 269 county precincts reporting. This does not include outstanding absentee and provisional ballots.

Turnout is often lower during elections that occur in non-presidential years, with only 39 percent, or 246,978, county voters casting a ballot in 2014 and 47 percent, or 267,031 voters, in 2010 according to the Maryland State Board of Elections. Conversely, turnout exceeded 70 percent in both the 2012 and 2016 presidential election cycles.

Early vote totals were also high in this year’s general election, with more than 113,000 residents, or 16 percent of voters casting their ballot during the eight-day period. This was three times the early vote turnout from 2014.

Additionally, 47,004 residents sent in absentee ballots in this year’s election, which was up from 17,370 four years ago. According to the latest report from the state board of elections on Tuesday, only about half of the ballots sent in this year had been received.

Dan Schere can be reached at Daniel.schere@bethesdamagazine.com