Late Blitz Boosts Election Turnout

More than 10% of voters turned in a ballot on election day.

TRICKY: Nixon-masked racers at the Adult Soapbox Derby. (Chris Nesseth)
By Nigel Jaquiss

Through May 15, the day before the May 16 election, the percentage of ballots returned stood at just 16.38%, an anemic total. It’s normal for the final day to see a flurry of ballots, but this year saw a far greater last-minute rush: 10.41% of voters turned in a ballot on election day.

That’s about twice the percentage of voters who waited until the last day in the past two May off-year elections. (Ballots were mailed to voters nearly a week late, thanks to a printing error by the Multnomah County Elections Division.)

And 2023 marked the first May off-year election in which ballots postmarked by, rather than received on, election day would be counted. So another 2.47% of ballots came in during the week after the election, bringing the final turnout to 29.26%, which is far larger than either of the past two May elections.

“We were expecting 25% turnout and planning for 30%, so we had the resources in place to handle the late surge,” says county elections director Tim Scott. “It was still a bit surprising, though, since we hadn’t seen a 10% election day turnout increase in a special district election since May of 2017.”

Voters elected Julia Brim-Edwards to the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners and Patte Sullivan to the Portland School Board, renewed the Portland Children’s Levy, and rejected a capital gains tax.

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