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Certified results: 19.07 percent statewide primary turnout

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Illinois

STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS CERTIFIES RESULTS OF MARCH 19 PRIMARY

Voter turnout for the March 19 primary election was 19 percent, according to the official vote total certified today by the Illinois State Board of Elections.

The official total showed 1,518,856 of the state’s 7,965,287 registered voters cast ballots in the primary, resulting in a statewide voter turnout of 19.07 percent. It was the lowest turnout in a presidential primary in several decades. (See turnout charts below.)

Democratic voters cast 891,342 ballots, accounting for 58.69 percent of the total. Republican ballots totaled 609,941 for 40.16 percent of the total.

The only statewide office on the primary ballot was for President of the United States. Incumbent President Joseph Biden won the Democratic primary with 91.48 percent of the vote while Donald Trump won the Republican primary with 80.5 percent. Voters in those primaries also selected delegates to party conventions from the state’s 17 congressional districts.

Also on the state primary ballot were 118 representative and 23 senatorial seats in the Illinois General Assembly, 17 congressional seats and judicial races at all levels including the first and fourth Illinois Supreme Court districts.

Complete results can be found on the State Board of Elections website and the complete Official Vote Totals Book is available for download in the Vote Totals section of the site’s publications page.

Winners in the primary elections will appear on the Nov. 5 General Election ballot. For offices in which a party did not nominate a candidate in the primary, managing committees of those offices have until June 3 to fill the vacancy in nomination for the November ballot.

Independent and new party candidates will file nominating petitions with the State Board of Elections June 17-24. SBE is scheduled to certify the Nov. 5 ballot on Aug. 23. Early voting for the General Election begins Sept. 26.

* Presidential primary election turnout, including party split of the total vote, back to 1972…

* Turnout figures and party splits for all primaries – midterm and presidential – back to 1972…

posted by Isabel Miller
Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 11:17 am

Comments

I would suggest you stop dealing with any numbers till after the Passover break.

Comment by NotRich Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 11:37 am
NotRich, lol. You’re right.

Notice, however, that this is Isabel’s post.

Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 11:49 am
Hence why the numbers are correct

Comment by NotRich Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 11:50 am
25.9% in Chicago, for comparison’s sake.

Comment by Stephanie Kollmann Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 12:04 pm
Lower turnouts might have been a good thing in both of the ‘86 and 2010 Democratic primaries. If only the Larouchie voters (for Fairchild and Hart) in ‘86 and the Scott Lee Cohen voters in ‘10 had all decided to stay home. Or fewer Blago voters in the ‘02 primary. How our state would have been a lot different thereafter those three years.

Comment by NonAFSCMEStateEmployeeFromChatham Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 12:26 pm
If you’re a Democrat in Union County, pulling a primary ballot in a presidential election year is the acme of irrelevance.

Comment by Flyin'Elvis'-Utah Chapter Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 12:34 pm
i guess the good citizens are pretty happy with their elected officials and government or total turned off by it

Comment by DuPage Saint Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 12:47 pm
I know this is sad to admit on this board but I did not know it was the Illinois primary until the day after. Oops(bp)

Comment by Lurker Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 12:51 pm
There was not a single contested race on the democrat ballot in my district, other than President if you can call that one contested. So why should voters bother?

Comment by Grimlock Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 12:51 pm
=i guess the good citizens are pretty happy with their elected officials and government or total turned off by it=

I am not always satisfied with my elected officials. What would you recommend for independents like me who don’t want to pull a party ballot in the primary? (No snark intended. I am open to suggestions.)

I would like to see ranked choice voting, or a primary system similar to the general election with a complete ballot where I could vote for different party candidates running in different offices (e.g., Democratic Governor, Republican representative or vice versa).

Comment by Steve Polite Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 1:54 pm
i was probably awfully quick to comment and i can see why people don’t take time to vote when it is awfully uncontested. i vote anyway just because i think i should and there may be a referendum but i often skip uncontested. i believe in the party primaries as i think parties should control who runs in their name. But maybe rank d voting or jungle primaries might work. i still wish we had multi candidate districts. Quinn really messed that up

Comment by DuPage Saint Friday, Apr 19, 24 @ 2:40 pm