Voter registration rates in 2022 hit highest in 20 years: Census Bureau
A voter takes a sticker after casting an early ballot at a polling station Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023, in Milwaukee. Recent revelations about Republican election strategies targeting minority communities in Wisconsin’s biggest city came as no surprise to many Black voters. For years, voting rights advocates have accused Wisconsin Republicans of pushing policies to suppress voters of color and lower-income voters. Many of those policies centered on the Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Census data released Tuesday shows that voter registration rates in the 2022 midterm elections were the highest in 20 years, though turnout dipped slightly from the 2018 midterms.
The new data published Tuesday reported that the share of voting-age citizens who were registered to vote in 2022 rose to 69.1 percent, which is the highest rate since at least the 2002 midterm elections. This is also an increase from the 2018 congressional elections, where the registration rate among the voting-age population was 66.9 percent.
Voter turnout in the 2022 election was the second-highest for a congressional election in the past two decades, trailing only the 2018 midterm. There was 52.2 percent voter turnout in 2022, which is 1.2 percentage points lower than it was in 2018’s 53.4 percent voter turnout.
The census press release noted that the 2022 voter turnout remained “significantly higher” than in 2014 or 2010, when the turnout was 41.9 percent and 45.5 percent, respectively.
Two years after hitting a record-high in the 2020 election, the number of voters who voted early or by mail also remained high in the 2022 midterms. Nearly 50 percent of those who voted in 2022 either voted early, by mail or a combination of both this past election.
That is 10 percentage points higher than the previous midterm election in 2018, where 39.8 percent of voters voted early, by mail or a combination of both.