How does Centre County voter turnout in Tuesday’s primary election compare to past years?

Driven by high-profile races for county judge and school board, almost 30% of Centre County voters turned out for Tuesday’s primary.

During the past 10 years, primary election turnout has peaked around 37% during the presidential primaries of 2016 and 2020 and last year’s primary for governor and Senate.

While local elections tend to see low participation, this year’s turnout rate of 29.76% is the highest for a municipal (odd-year) primary over the past decade. As few as 15.69% of voters participated in a primary in recent years — the lowest turnout during the past 10 elections in 2015.

About 31% of Democratic voters turned out, while a little more than 28% of Republicans voted in the primary. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in the county by almost 1,500 voters.

The precinct with the highest turnout was State College North at 49.7% (329 out of 662 registered voters cast a ballot). The precinct with the largest number of ballots cast was Harris East at 842 (with a total of 2,141 voters, the turnout was 39.33%).

Mail ballots accounted for 7,477 of the 24,590 that were cast. The vast majority — more than 5,600 — of mail ballots were returned by Democrats.

The figures were released by the county early Wednesday morning.