According to numbers from the Virginia Public Access Project, turnout in last week’s election was record setting for an off year - nearly 40-percent of registered voters came to the polls. But those numbers vary across the state.
The highest rates of turnout were almost all in central Virginia. In some races in the Richmond suburbs turnout hit almost 60-percent.
See Turnout for Your Race: VPAP's District by District Analysis
The lowest rates were spread throughout the state, but they all had something in common: an uncontested race.
“It’s hard to get a Republican to run in Arlington. And it’s hard to get a Democrat to run in southwest and southside Virginia,” said the University of Mary Washington’s Stephen Farnsworth. “It takes a high level of commitment to citizenship to go out and cast a vote if there’s only one name on the ballot.”
Even still — the raw numbers astonished Alex Keena, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University.
“Population is growing, more people are registered obviously, but the rise in votes outpaced population growth for sure,” said Keena.
One note, turnout rates are based on the number of registered voters, not eligible voters.
According to Virginia’s Department of Elections Virginia has about 5.6 million registered voters, but according to the Department of Commerce there are about 6.5 million Virginians of voting age.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
