COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Thanks to a series of choices made by state Republican officials in response to this year’s dysfunctional redistricting process, Tuesday’s election saw the lowest voter participation in a statewide primary dating back to at least the 1960s.
For Tuesday’s election, just 631,000 people cast ballots to pick Republican and Democratic state legislative candidates and state party central committee members. The race lived up to political observers’ expectations that there would be low turnout due to voter confusion over an unprecedented second primary election in a single year, as well as the lack of statewide marquee races to generate public interest.
Before Tuesday, more than 1 million voters had participated in every even-year primary election in Ohio since at least 1962, the earliest date for which the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office has easily accessible records. During that time, the lowest number was in 2002, when 1.3 million Ohioans voted -- more than twice as many that voted in Tuesday’s election. By comparison, 1.6 million Ohioans voted in the state’s first primary election this year that was held in May, when voters chose candidates for statewide office, including governor and U.S. Senate, as well as congressional races. Those candidates, particularly in the Republican U.S. primary, spent tens of millions of dollars on TV ads.
On a percentage basis, detailed state turnout records are available for primary elections dating back to 1986. The lowest voter turnout percentage during that time was the 17% who participated in the 2014 primary election.
For Tuesday’s election, 8% of registered voters in Ohio cast ballots.
Some mobile users may need to use this link to see the chart with Ohio’s voter turnout history.
In interviews on Wednesday, elections officials around the Greater Cleveland area reported having relatively little work to do on election night, allowing them to retire unusually early. Elections officials and candidates said the most common questions they got came from voters who were confused whether an election was even being held, given that Ohio held another primary election just a few months ago.
“It almost didn’t feel like an election,” said Tony Perlatti, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, which saw a 10% turnout -- by far the lowest since 2010, but slightly higher than the state average likely due to several competitive state legislative primaries.
Some mobile users may need to use this link to see the chart with Cuyahoga County’s voter turnout history.
“It was a lot of work for an anticlimactic day,” said Ross McDonald, director of the Lake County Board of Elections. Lake County -- which held four uncontested races for state representative and Republican and Democratic state central committee members -- saw a paltry 6% turnout.
“When I started knocking doors [in mid-May], a lot of people said, ‘But I already voted,’” said state Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, a Westlake Democrat who won her hotly contested primary against state Rep. Monique Smith on Tuesday. “I said ‘No.’ I spent so much time explaining why I was in the district and how it all came to be.”
Ohio held an unprecedented second primary election as a result of a breakdown in redistricting, the process of redrawing state legislative lines to reflect recent population changes. Ruling on lawsuits from Democrats, voting-rights groups and their allies, the Ohio Supreme Court repeatedly rejected Republican-drawn maps as illegal under the new anti-gerrymandering language that voters added to the state constitution in 2015. That meant the maps weren’t ready to go in May, when the primary races were supposed to be decided.
The implications of the redistricting delays became clear in mid-February, when pre-elections planning deadlines started getting squeezed. Bipartisan local elections officials, as well as Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, called on lawmakers to delay the election. Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, joined in.
But Republican state lawmakers who control the Ohio House and Senate refused, citing in part the ramifications of delaying local and statewide races, including the costly Republican U.S. Senate primary, one of the most hotly contested races in the country. Instead, they allocated an extra $8 million so elections officials could do extra catch-up work to prepare for races in May that were ready: the statewide and congressional contests, as well as for local public offices.
Meanwhile, races for the state legislature and state central committee seats were postponed indefinitely. After a favorable federal court decision in late April, LaRose and other Republicans on the Ohio Redistricting Commission ran the clock until late May, when a federal court ordered the second Aug. 2 election and chose one of the maps the Ohio Supreme Court had rejected.
Throughout the whole process, minority Democrats’ influence was limited, although their outside allies continued to pursue the redistricting cases in court, and Democrats on the Ohio Redistricting Commission declined to cut a deal with Republicans on state legislative maps in February when there was at least was a rational argument for them to take it.
Republican lawmakers ended up setting aside another $20 million for the second election, adding to the price tag for taxpayers. Some GOP lawmakers, worried about potentially unpredictable outcomes in a low-turnout election, also wanted to perform an unsolicited mailing of absentee ballot applications so voters could be reminded of the second election. But that idea ended up not getting enough support and didn’t happen.
Republican incumbents largely ended up avoiding upsets this week, although two -- state Reps. Shawn Stevens in Delaware County and Mark Fraizer in Licking County -- ended up losing to challengers.
Asked about the low voter turnout, Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who sits on the Ohio Redistricting Commission, reiterated on Wednesday that he thinks the redistricting process should be changed, which would require voter approval. He hasn’t said how, although he’s suggested that competitive districts should be a stated criteria.
Voter-rights groups meanwhile have suggested removing DeWine and other politicians from the process altogether.
“It doesn’t change what I’ve said... that the redistricting process didn’t work very well. And what we saw was just another example,” DeWine said. “There’s two primaries, and we had very limited things on the ballot. And so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that we had low turnout.”
LaRose said he found the entire process frustrating, claiming both Republican and Democratic lawmakers contributed to the unprecedented second primary.
“It’s unfortunate that we ended up being put in this place,” said LaRose, the state’s top elections official. “I would like to see the next time we draw district lines more of a sense of compromise. Compromise isn’t a failure. It’s how statesmen and women solve problems.”
LaRose also places blame on the Ohio Supreme Court for how they have managed the redistricting process. A slim majority, with retiring Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor joining the court’s three Democrats, voted to strike down each one of the Republican-drawn maps.
“It’s clear that the Ohio Supreme Court has the power to determine whether a map or a set of maps is constitutional or not,” he said. “What I don’t think the court has the power to do is dictate how two other branches of government do their work.”
Sweeney, the Democratic state lawmaker, blamed Republicans who controlled the redistricting process.
“To me, it’s not a policy argument. This didn’t happen by accident. It could have been avoided... Republicans on the commission should have drawn fair districts so we could have the May election, or they could have done the right thing and pushed all the elections back so we could have just one election altogether,” she said.
A few counties, mostly in rural areas, saw higher pockets of voter turnout in the mid double-digits on Tuesday. In Ashland County, for instance, 15% of voters cast ballots in an Ohio House district that also includes part of Medina County. Ashland County Board of Elections Director Shannon Johnson attributed the relatively high number to to Melanie Miller, a well-known local candidate who won her Republican primary and is almost certain to win in November.
“Historically, for August elections, we’ve never had anything this high,” Johnson said.
But McDonald, the Lake County elections director, said his county has seen higher turnout for August elections, which typically only feature local ballot issues like school levies.
“We had a good election. It was smooth. But obviously it’s disappointing to see less than a 6% turnout,” he said. “It wound up being one of the costliest elections I’ve ever been a part of.”