Voter turnout in Allen County 29 percent
INDIANAPOLIS — Allen County saw a voter turnout of 29 percent during the general election in November, a number slightly below the state average.
Secretary of State Connie Lawson released the numbers on Tuesday, Dec. 2 showing that 30 percent, or 1,388,965, of Indiana’s 4.5 million registered voters cast a vote in the November 4 General Election. The 2014 election was the one in the 12-year cycle in which there was not a gubernatorial or senate race on the ballot. The last time this occurred was in 2002, when voter turnout was 39 percent.
In Allen County, 75,307 of the 260,324 registered voters cast a ballot. Of that number, 86 percent, or 64,899, voted in person. Another 10,408 chose an absentee ballot.
Several Indiana counties saw voter turnout higher than 40 percent. Martin, Ohio, Perry, Pike and Spencer all had at least a 48 percent turnout rate. Jay County had the highest turnout rate in the state at 52 percent.
Locally, only DeKalb County (26 percent) had a lower turnout than Allen County. Adams County saw 42 percent, Kosciusko 33 percent, Noble 30 percent, Wells 46 percent, and Whitley county had 35 percent voter turnout.
Voter turnout is calculated by dividing the number of voters voting by the number of registered voters.
In May of this year, the Secretary of State’s office began working with county election officials to update Indiana’s voter list. This process has identified inaccurate voter registrations and marked those voters’ records inactive, the first step required to update Indiana’s voter list. The voter list refresh project will give Hoosiers a more accurate view of voter participation in future elections. When voter lists are bloated with inaccurate information, turnout statistics are artificially lowered.
If Indiana’s voter turnout were based upon voter participation of active voters instead of including inactive voters, Indiana’s actual turnout would be 36.4 percent.