Minnesota’s voter turnout track record, in five charts

Turnout is lower in midterm elections, which tend to be viewed as lower-profile and less important than presidential races. In Minnesota, midterm turnout hit a low in 1986, at 48%, and peaked at nearly 65% in 2002.

That record was almost matched in 2018, when just over 64% of Minnesotans voted.

Turnout surged across the country that year, especially among young people and people of color, as voters motivated by President Donald Trump’s presidency showed up to the polls in record numbers. For the first time in decades, more than half of eligible voters in the U.S. cast a ballot during a midterm.

In case you haven’t heard: Minnesota has the nation’s highest voter turnout rate

The fact that it’s easier to vote here than in most other states is a major reason turnout is so high. Minnesota was one of the first states to allow same-day registration, which in the last several elections has allowed hundreds of thousands of voters to register at their polling place on Election Day.

Experts also say a more abstract factor likely influences Minnesota’s voting rates: the state’s culture around voting and civic engagement.

“There’s something that drives deeper that gives us a base of high turnout, and then you add everything else to that afterward,” DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin told MinnPost in 2016.

Disparities in voter turnout remain

Although Minnesota has a high overall voter turnout rate, disparities remain.

Younger voters turn out at far lower rates than their older counterparts, but turnout among voters under 30 surged between the 2014 and 2018 midterms. Turnout more than doubled among 20- to 24-year-olds, from 18.4% in 2014 to 37.5% in 2018.

There are significant gaps across racial groups, too. In 2016, just 19% of Hispanic voters, 37% of Asian voters and 58% of Black voters said they cast a ballot, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

There are a long list of reasons for the gap in turnout in the United States, including the nation’s long history of voter disenfranchisement — especially in the Jim Crow South — unequal access to polling places and language barriers, experts say.

In Minnesota, some of the gaps are narrowing. Black voter turnout increased substantially between the 2008 and 2016 elections, rising from 45.5% in 2008 to 58% in 2016.

And this year, Minnesota activists hope to boost turnout rates among Minnesotans of color even higher. Faith in Minnesota, the political arm of nonprofit faith organization ISAIAH, launched a statewide campaign this spring to get Minnesotans from diverse backgrounds to the polls.

Faith in Minnesota is on track to make hundreds of thousands of contacts with voters by Election Day through coalitions of volunteers dedicated to reaching Black voters, Muslim voters, child care center owners, suburban residents and other communities, said JaNaé Bates, spokesperson for Faith in Minnesota.

“It’s engaging a bunch of people who, at best, have been marginalized and pushed out from political power, and at worst have been scapegoated and used as a political football, like our Muslim commuinty here in Minnesota,” Bates said. “It’s super exciting, at a time when politics can feel really cynical.”