Ballot bypass? Illinois sees lowest presidential primary voter turnout in decades

The March 19 election will go down in Illinois history as having the lowest voter turnout for a presidential primary since at least 1960.

Chicago may have avoided surpassing 2012’s bleak low-turnout record of 24.6%, eking out a final turnout of 25.8%. But statewide, just 1,518,856 of the 7,965,287 registered voters in Illinois cast ballots in the March 19 primary. That resulted in a statewide voter turnout of 19.07%, the Illinois State Board of Elections said Friday in releasing its certified election results.

Excuses abound for why the numbers are so low, including that President Joe Biden and Donald Trump already had secured the votes needed to earn their party nominations. But the numbers are the lowest for a presidential primary election since at least 1960, according to state election board figures.

The only office on the ballot statewide was president. Biden won the Democratic primary with 91.48%, of the ballots cast, while Trump won the Republican primary with 80.5%.

But in all 17 congressional districts, voters chose nominees for the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as delegates to party conventions. Voters across the state also cast ballots for 141 seats in the General Assembly —118 seats in the Illinois House and 23 in the Illinois Senate. And ballots were cast in county and judicial races.

The second-lowest voter turnout statewide was in 2012, when 23% of registered voters cast ballots. The high-turnout record was 47% in 2016.

City election officials have attributed the low turnout to a lack of competition at the top of the ballot. So did the Cook County Democratic Party; a spokesman said primary turnout in Illinois is not a good predictor of turnout in the general election.