(Washington County) Washington County officials say voter turnout for this year’s presidential election was up when compared to 2020’s.
“Our total voter turnout actually went up 1%, which is really good because our total turnout in 2020 was about 95%,” says Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann. “It was 96% in 2024. Which, when you think about it, when you [have] only got about only 5% left to give, we captured 20% of that remaining 5%.”
Earlier this year, the county passed an election integrity package. The county executive says the package had everything to do with the turnout.
“We worked with local municipalities, gave them grants [to] increase the number of hours where they can have early in-person voting,” Schoemann. “[We] really tried to deemphasize using ballot drop boxes or mail-in balloting. Certainly, something people can do, but [we] really wanted to give them that chance to do it in person and it worked. It worked really well.”
Schoemann says they were approaching 60-percent turnout before election day.
