Bucks County Primary Election Turnout At 32 Percent

Turnout for Bucks County’s 2022 primary election was higher than is past midterm primary years, according election data.

The Bucks County Board of Elections reported a 32 percent turnout in Tuesday’s election. The closed primary – meaning only Democrats could vote for Democrats and only Republicans could vote for Republicans – turnout included in-person and mail-in voting.

There were 152,371 ballots cast out of 476,145 registered voters, according to data.

The turnout rate was the highest in midterm elections in the county going back to 2006, the last year midterm turnout data is available.

Turnout for the midterm primary election in 2006 was about 13 percent, 20 percent in 2010, 13 percent in 2014, and 20 percent in 2018.

Higher turnout could have been pushed forward by easier access to voting, with the addition to mail-in voting, and the highly-publicized competitive primary races.

Between in-person and mail-in ballots, county election workers finished up the bulk of the tallying by 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, officials said.

There are about 1,500 ballots outstanding ballots. They are made up of military ballots, 640 provisional ballots, and mail-in and 714 absentee ballots with possible problems, including missing signatures, dates, and secrecy envelopes.

Over the coming days, Bucks County Board of Elections staff will be looking into segregated and provisional ballots.

Next Tuesday, the Bucks County Board of Elections will meet to consider accepting or denying outstanding ballots, as is typical following an election.

Bucks County COO Margaret McKevitt commended the election staff and workers from other departments who came together to “perform tendentiously” for the primary election.

McKevitt said staff learns more every election and will be working to get results back faster.

The Bucks County Commissioners also thanked election workers.

In the past, the commissioners – two Democrats and one Republican – have called for state lawmakers to update part of the election law to allow for results being tabulated more quickly on election night.

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