Clyde Responds to Good and Bad News in Ohio's Vote Certification
State Rep. Kathleen Clyde (D-Kent) responded to yesterday’s certification of the Ohio’s vote totals.
“There was both good news and bad news this year in the counting of Ohio’s votes,” said Rep. Clyde. “Because of our long fight to count ballots and the persistence of voting rights advocates, the good news is that 7,515 illegally purged voters had their ballots counted instead of thrown out yesterday. If Secretary Husted had prevailed, those ballots would have been thrown out again and the provisional ballot count rate would have been the worst since Ken Blackwell ran the 2004 election. Instead, the 2016 count rate was just under average for the last decade.
“The bad news is Ohio’s voter turnout was the lowest since the year 2000. Secretary Husted is touting a falsely high turnout rate among registered voters, rolls that have been shrunken by years of aggressive voter purging. The real turnout of Ohio’s voting eligible population was only 64.1%. When voter turnout is low, all Ohioans are worse off. Meanwhile, Minnesota with a culture of easy voting and encouragement of civic duty saw 75% of their eligible citizens turn out.”
Below are the presidential election turnout rates in Ohio going back to 2000 and the available provisional ballot count rates going back to 2004.
Ohio Voting Eligible Population Turnout in Presidential Elections 2000 - 2016
|
2016 |
64.1% |
|
2012 |
65.1% |
|
2008 |
67.8% |
|
2004 |
67.9% |
|
2000 |
57.8% |
Source: http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data
Provisional Ballot Count Rates 2004 – 2016
|
2016 |
85.17% |
|
2015 |
84.63% |
|
2014 |
90.39% |
|
2013 |
88.06% |
|
2012 |
83.52% |
|
2011 |
86.33% |
|
2010 |
88.81% |
|
2009 |
86.67% |
|
2008 |
80.67% |
|
2007 |
84.78% |
|
2006 |
80.79% |
|
2004 |
77.9% |
Source: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/elections/Research/electResultsMain.aspx