Tuesday’s primaries featured lowest turnout in a decade

Not since 2014 had so few people voted in Vermont’s primary elections.

On Tuesday, fewer people participated in choosing the Democratic and Republican nominees for November’s general election than in any of the four previous election cycles, according to the state’s unofficial results .

Only 15% of Vermont’s registered voters cast a ballot, according to state elections director Séan Sheehan, a sharp drop from the 27% turnout rate in 2022, or the record-breaking 34% turnout rate in 2020.

The Democratic primary saw about half the number of voters — around 50,000, according to preliminary totals — as the 2022 primary, when more than 102,000 voters turned in a ballot.

On the Republican side, participation dropped from over 30,000 votes cast in 2022’s primary, to fewer than 25,000 votes in Tuesday’s election. There are over 506,000 registered voters in Vermont, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

This summer’s primary season was particularly sleepy , with competitive primaries in only 14 of the state’s 109 House districts and in just seven of the state’s 16 Senate districts. For the first time in 68 years, four of Vermont’s major party federal primary races featured no competition at all .

“How much of a turnout happens in August is often fairly dependent on how many contested races there are,” Sheehan said.

Sheehan contrasted Tuesday’s election with the 2022 primary, when staggering levels of turnover — from Vermont’s first two open congressional seats in 16 years, to four open statewide races — led to much higher participation rates .

The unsurpassed 2020 turnout, Sheehan said, was due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which prompted the state to mail a ballot to every registered voter. That year, 73% of voters turned in absentee ballots, according to Sheehan.

Since then, Vermont has reverted to its previous election system, wherein voters must request a mail-in ballot if they want one. Although this year’s rate of absentee voters — about 30% — was lower than the 2020 primary, it is still about double the 2018 primary rate, according to Sheehan.

“That is a shift that happened with the pandemic. The plateau (for absentee voter rates) is significantly higher now than it was before then,” Sheehan said. “I think a lot of people like getting their ballots, doing their candidate research, in the comfort of their own home.”

A longer view of Vermont’s turnout in the August primaries reveals that Tuesday’s 15% rate is not so extraordinary. The state has seen lower rates in three other election cycles in the past 20 years, including 7% in 2008, 12% in 2012 and 9% in 2014.

Higher turnout rates often correspond to hotly contested races, such as an open governor’s seat, like the 23% in 2010 — when Republican Gov. Jim Douglas did not seek reelection — and the 25% in 2016, when Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin decided to retire.

Nevertheless, at a press conference Wednesday, Gov. Phil Scott expressed his disappointment at Tuesday’s low turnout rate and questioned whether the state had really gotten “the will of the people.”

“You hear a lot of complaints about what’s happening in our state, and we need people to vote to change it,” Scott said.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of House districts due to an editing error.

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