Voting in state and national elections is one of the most important things we can do as adults. After all, it is voting that puts people in office – from our local officials to the president of the United States.
Unfortunately, not everyone takes advantage of their right to vote. Whether they just haven't registered, don't care about politics, don't like any of the candidates, or have some other reasons, many people don't show up at the polls come election day.
In this article, we're going to explore the total voter turnout by state for the 2020 election. We'll focus on the percentage of people by state that showed up for the last presidential election. We will focus solely on the voting-eligible population or VEP. This includes adults that are of legal voting age while excluding ineligible felons.
In the 2020 election, 159,633,396 people voted. This is the largest voter turnout in U.S. history. This is also the largest percentage of the voting-eligible population in 120 years at 66.7%. President Joe Biden received 81,283,098 votes, while former President Donald Trump won 74,222,958 votes, a difference of 7,060,140 votes. In the Electoral College, Biden received 306 over Trump's 232.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many states expanded vote-by-mail to help people safely vote in the 2020 election. It is believed that the availability of mail voting helped increase overall voter turnout.
The highest voter turnout was in Minnesota, where 79.96% of the VEP voted in the presidential election. Colorado follows with 76.41% and is closely followed by Maine, where 76.32% of the VEP voted.
When it comes to the lowest voter turnout, Oklahoma ranked last with a turnout of just 54.99%%. Other states with the lowest voter turnout include Arkansas, Hawaii, West Virginia, and Tennessee, all of which had less than 60% of their VEP vote in the 2020 election.