Four years ago, when the nation headed to the polls in the middle of Donald Trump’s divisive term as president, half of eligible voters cast a ballot. Last week, preliminary data shows overall turnout was down a few percentage points. But some states saw an increase in voter participation.
According to preliminary data collected by the U.S. Election Project, three states reached 60% turnout in 2022: Minnesota (60.6), Maine (60.9) and Wisconsin (60.2). While none of the three are pure vote-by-mail states, each offers no-excuse absentee voting; both Minnesota and Wisconsin featured competitive races at the top of their ballots.
The top 10 states also included three vote-by-mail states and the only two that use ranked-choice voting for state and federal elections.
