Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023
Was Wisconsin’s ‘registered voter turnout’ 94% in the 2020 election?
There were 3,684,726 active registered voters on Nov. 1, 2020, and an additional 219,045 voters registered on Election Day, so the 3,308,805 ballots cast represented 85% of registered voters.
But "registered voter turnout" is less relevant than actual turnout of eligible voters. The Wisconsin Elections Commission calculates voter turnout as a percentage of people age 18 and above as estimated by the state Demographic Services Center.
Wisconsin's official 2020 election turnout was 71.7%, according to a 2020 Census voting age population of 4,612,301 as provided by the Department of Administration.
Election deniers have pointed to high turnout as a reason for skepticism about the results, but turnout was lower in 2020 than the 73.2% turnout in 2004.
Contrary to the claims of election skeptics, these numbers aren't unusually high. All 50 states and the District of Columbia experienced similar turnout, according to the Associated Press.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- State of Wisconsin General Election Voter Registration and Absentee Statistics 1984-2022.xlsx
- Associated Press Wisconsin’s turnout of registered voters in the 2020 election was not suspicious or abnormal
- State of Wisconsin Nov. 1, 2020 Voter Registration Statistics
- Wisconsin Department of Administration County Population Estimate
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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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