Midterm Election Sees Second Highest Ballots Cast in Oregon History
It’s official! Today we certified the November 6th General Election, and I’m pleased to report that the Oregon midterm November General Election had the second highest number of ballots cast in Oregon history. Our office also pioneered a number of voter engagement efforts, including a first-of-its-kind outreach to Oregon inactive voters through Facebook.
 Each of Oregon’s 36 counties has provided their official certified election results to us here at the Secretary of State’s office. This included a manual, by-hand audit of a percentage of ballots cast to confirm they were counted accurately. In all, 1,914,923 ballots were cast. Wheeler County had the highest turnout in the state at 90.3%. Turnout among voters by age demographic was:
- 18-34: 50.7%
- 35-49: 67.5%
- 50-64: 77.1%
- 65+: 85.8%
Turnout by political party shows:
- Democrats with 81.8%
- Republicans with 81.1%
- Independents with 70.5%
- Non-Affiliated with 47.5%
- Constitution with 61.2%
- Libertarian with 64.3%
- Pacific Green with 73.4%
- Progressive with 69.2%
- Working Families with 44.9%
You may recall that last year my office took action to protect the voting rights of over 60,000 eligible Oregon voters. I'm pleased that these voters were sent ballots for this election and thousands were able to vote due to this historic expansion of voter access.
Because of the large turnout during this election, the number of valid signatures that will be required to put initiatives and referenda on the ballot for the next four years has increased by 21.3%. Our constitution says that the number of signatures required to put initiatives and referenda on the ballot is a percentage of all votes cast for governor in the previous election. There were 1,866,997 total votes cast for governor. To add a constitutional amendment will require 149,360 signatures, which is 8% of the total number of votes cast for governor. An initiative statute requires 6%, which equates to 112,020 signatures, and a referendum requires 4%, which is 74,680 signatures.
If you would like to see the detailed statistics from the General Election, go to oregonvotes.gov.
I am thankful to the Elections Division team and county election officials, who successfully administered another smooth, safe, and secure election. We will continue to work to make Oregon elections as safe and accessible as possible to all eligible voters.
Sincerely,
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