As Number of Oregon Votes Eclipses Previous Record, All Eyes Are on Nonaffiliated Voters

In Multnomah County and across the state, it appears most Democrats and Republicans who will vote already have.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley at a get-out-the-vote event in Portland on Nov. 3, 2020. (Alex Wittwer)

The percentage of voters casting ballots in Multnomah County and statewide continues to far outpace previous years—73% of registered voters both locally and statewide have cast ballots this morning—but there's good reason to believe that in percentage terms the final total will fall short of the 86% participation rates recorded in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections.

The reason: nonaffiliated voters.

Oregon's automatic Motor Voter registration law, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2016, has been really effective at getting new voters signed up for ballots: The number of registered voters has increased by nearly 400,000 since the 2016 general election, bringing the total to 2,949,687.

About two-thirds of those voters are not affiliated with any party, however. And while there's not much history on those new voters, NAVs in general are far less likely to vote than those registered with a party.

In the 2016 general election, for instance, 87.9% of Democrats and 89.3% of Republicans cast votes in Oregon. Just 61.1% of nonaffiliated voters cast their ballots.

It's hard to know whether NAVs will be more inspired to vote in 2020.

So far, 84.2% of Democrats and 81.2% of Republicans have cast ballots, while just 54% of NAVS have. Even if the major parties push turnout up to 90% today and NAVs get to 60, total participation will struggle to get above the low 80s.

The good news: The total number of Oregonians who have voted as of this morning, 2,155,350, is already more than 100,000 more than the previous record posted in 2016, 2,051,448. It's likely another 200,000 votes will come in today, so while the percentage probably won't be a record, the goal of Motor Voter—getting more people to cast ballots—will certainly be achieved.

Your ballot must be delivered to an official ballot drop site by 8 pm tonight in order to be counted. Find the drop site nearest to you here.

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