Voter turnout for last month’s primary elections is up significantly over the last few election cycles that only had municipal, not state races. But that uptick is likely a product of recent voter roll cleanup efforts.
The total number of voters that cast ballots in May is actually down over the last four municipal election cycles.
But recent voter roll purges spearheaded by the Secretary of State’s office have cleared hundreds of thousands of names from voter registration lists.
And so reported turnout last month was more than 12-percent across the 72 of Indiana’s 92 counties that had primary elections. That’s more than 2-percent higher than any municipal primary year going back to 2003.
Starke County in northwest Indiana led the way with reported turnout at more than 33 percent, while Tippecanoe County had the lowest turnout at just 4-percent.
Among West Central Indiana counties, voter turnout was better in Montgomery (almost 15-percent), Clinton (nearly 24-percent) and Carroll (22-percent) Counties -- all of which had contested mayoral primaries in the county's largest municipality. Tippecanoe County did not have a mayoral primary in either Lafayette or West Lafayette. West Lafayette did not hold elections at all, because there were no seats contested within a single party.
