Translate

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

The effect of the "stampless ballot" in WA State

The current WA State turnout percentage for Primary 2018 will be one of the highest for the 19 Primary elections since year 2000. The 1.7M votes will be the largest number of votes ever returned for a primary election in WA State. My initial inference is that the new stampless ballots are bringing an entire new voter pool into play. WA as a state is beset by both by rural poverty and independent voters. The nearest comparable Legislative District election year is a Presidential year (2016):

(Primary2018) - (Primary 2016)
1710872 - 1421841
[1] 289031

(Primary2018) / (Primary 2016)
1710872/1421841
[1] 1.203279

A twenty percent increase in votes for General Election 2018 because of stampless ballots means an entirely new voter profile for WA State.

10:04 AM 8/14/2018

County Registered Ballots Turnout % Updated Next Estimated
Total 4,299,119 1,710,872 39.80% 8/13/2018 8/14/2018 32,140
5:34 PM 4:00 PM


# R 3.5 'data.table' code:
fread("WC_Historical_Election_Turnout.csv")[year(mdy(ElectionDate)) >= 2000 & !is.na(Turnout) & like(Description,"Primary"),][order(-Turnout)]

ElectionDate Description Counties Precincts Registered Ballots Turnout
9/14/2004 2004 Primary NA NA 3279205 1480247 45.14%
8/19/2008 Primary 39 6674 3417355 1455756 42.60%
8/17/2010 Primary 39 6778 3592079 1471791 40.97%
9/19/2000 2000 Primary NA NA 3234700 1319775 40.80%
9/19/2006 2006 Primary NA NA 3182209 1243992 39.09%
8/7/2012 Primary 39 6978 3731657 1435928 38.48%
8/2/2016 Primary 39 7147 4102624 1431058 34.88%
5/24/2016 Presidential Primary 39 7142 4088029 1421841 34.78%
9/17/2002 2002 Primary NA NA 3238601 1107861 34.21%
9/20/2005 2005 Primary NA NA 2701807 863489 31.96%
8/5/2014 Primary 39 6978 3925663 1222710 31.15%
8/18/2009 Primary 32 4785 2334067 724598 31.04%
8/16/2011 Primary 35 5123 2776149 819991 29.54%
8/21/2007 2007 Primary NA NA 2680339 757311 28.25%
8/1/2017 Primary 35 6351 3781977 1017946 26.92%
8/6/2013 Primary 36 3505 3221285 837098 25.99%
8/4/2015 Primary 34 5917 3356735 817876 24.37%
9/18/2001 2001 Primary NA NA 323927 62657 19.34%
9/16/2003 2003 Primary NA NA 1076966 194001 18.01%

No comments: