How many people turned out to vote in Pierce County? Here’s what we know right now
When polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday, a line of 100 people were snaking out of the Pierce County Voting Center on South 35th Street in Tacoma. Another estimated 800 people were inside the building.
They were there to register to vote, receive a replacement ballot and, most of all, vote in the day’s historic election which sent former Republican President Donald Trump back to the White House and elected Democrat Bob Ferguson as Washington’s newest governor.
Based on ballots received as of 4 p.m Wednesday, voter turnout in Pierce County stood at 65 percent, according to the Pierce County Auditor’s Office. That number will rise as last minute mailed ballots arrive.
In 2020, voter participation in the 2020 presidential election topped out at 82 percent, according to the Washington Secretary of State’s Office.
There are 577,332 eligible voters in Pierce County. As of 4 p.m. Wednesday, 376,417 ballots had been cast but not all had been counted.
Pierce County Auditor Linda Farmer said she expects to add thousands more to vote totals in the coming days as they are received and processed from mail deliveries and the last batches placed into drop boxes. There wasn’t a huge shift to mail in ballots after recent attacks on drop boxes in Clark County and in Oregon, she said.
“We did see thousands of people, and many more than we anticipated, coming in person to the Pierce County Voting Center to participate on Monday and Election Day,” she said.
At the Voting Center inside the Pierce County Annex, the last voters dropped their ballots in boxes a little past 10 p.m., according to Pierce County spokesperson Derrick Nunnally.
“Some of those folks wanted to be very thorough and conscientious,” he said.
No one was allowed to join the line at the annex after 8 p.m., he said. The same went for cars pulling up to the outside drop box. Fire marshals noted the last car in line at 8 p.m.
“As soon as that car came into the driveway, they blocked off the driveway,” Nunnally said.
A little over 8,300 people received in-person help at the annex on Nov. 4 and 5, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
This story was originally published November 6, 2024 at 1:08 PM.
