Voting in state and national elections is one of the most important things we can do as adults. After all, it is votes that put 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 reason, there are many people that 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 purposes of this article, we’re going to 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.
Based on this, the highest voter turnout was in the state of Minnesota, where 74.10% of the VEP voted in the presidential election. The state with the next highest voter turnout was New Hampshire, where over 71% of the eligible population showed up at the polls. Maine and Colorado were also at the top of the list for highest voter turnout, with 70.70% and 70% voting in the presidential election, respectively.
When it comes to the lowest voter turnout, Hawaii ranked last with a turnout of just 42.3%. This is the only state in the nation with a voter turnout of less than 50% of the eligible population. Other states with the lowest voter turnout include West Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, and Arizona – each of which had less than 55% of the eligible population place their votes in the presidential election.