A voter deposits a mail-in ballot at the drop box outside the Chester County Government Center on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Capital-Star/Peter Hall)
According to an analysis just released by the Department of State, voter turnout in the 2024 general election was the highest Pennsylvania has seen since at least 1988. They did not provide data going back further.
The department released a statement saying 69% of Pennsylvania’s voting-aged population cast a ballot in November’s election, the highest in at least 36 years. That includes 77% of eligible voters.
“This high level of voter engagement is a testament to the voter education work done in 2024 by the Shapiro administration, county election officials across all 67 Pennsylvania counties, candidate campaigns and nonprofit organizations,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said in a statement. “Our goal at the Department of State for every election is for every eligible Pennsylvanian to be able to cast their vote and have it counted.”
Previous elections, however, have seen higher percentages of registered voters cast ballots, including in 1988 and 1992, where 77.2% and 82% of registered voters cast ballots, respectively.
The data took several months to finalize and compile. Matt Heckel, a spokesperson of the Department of State, said “reconciling every last detail for each of the more than 7 million ballots cast in the 2024 general election simply took the 67 counties’ election officials time to complete and record in the statewide voter database, and then for the Department to compile and analyze the data generated.”