Centre County sees highest voter turnout for nonpresidential primary in past 10 years

Turnout for this year’s primary election was the highest for a nonpresidential primary in the past 10 years.

About 30% of registered voters in Centre County turned out for the primary election, unofficial results showed Wednesday.

A total of 31,805 ballots (30.3% of voters) were counted as of Wednesday afternoon.

Republican ballots outnumbered Democrats by about 2,000; 40% of registered Republicans in the county voted compared to 34% of Democrats.

The Republican primary was highlighted by competitive races for governor and U.S. Senate, while the Democratic primary featured a competitive race for Senate.

Overall voter turnout was higher than for the 2021 municipal primary, when voters chose each party’s candidates for state courts, school boards and township/borough leadership. Last year, 28.6% of voters — a total of 29,996 — cast ballots.

Excluding the presidential primaries of 2016 and 2020, this year’s turnout was the highest in the past decade, county statistics show. During the past 10 years, the highest turnout was the 2016 presidential primary, when 40,616 people (37% of registered voters) filled out ballots. The second highest turnout was in 2020, while the third highest was this year.

This story was originally published May 18, 2022 at 5:06 PM.