Did Allegheny County primary voter turnout beat expectations?

The Allegheny County Board of Elections on Monday certified the results of the May primary election, in which one of every four county voters cast their ballots.

Dave Voye, the county’s elections division manager, told the board that Democrats saw a nearly 35% voter turnout, while Republican turnout was almost 20%.

Voter turnout came in below Voye’s initial prediction of around 30%.

“I think for an off-year primary, 25% is pretty good,” Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University, told TribLive. “That’s not bad, because most people only pay attention to presidential politics, which is every four years.”

In the 2024 presidential primary, Allegheny County saw 27% voter turnout. More than 76% of county voters cast ballots in the general election in November.

Dagnes said this year’s municipal election in November will likely draw at least a slightly higher turnout than the primary.

Some voters are overwhelmed and tired of politics, and they opt to skip the polls, particularly in local elections that generate less interest than races on the national stage, according to Dagnes.

“When you get to the down-ballot races in off-year elections, most people really don’t care about that,” Dagnes said. “They should, because those are the races that are closest to people. They should be paying attention, but most people don’t.”

Participation in this year’s primary race fell short of the 29% voter turnout tallied in Allegheny County in 2021, the last time Pittsburgh saw a mayoral race on the ballot.

In 2021, over 57,000 Democrats voted in Pittsburgh’s mayoral primary, with about 2,000 Republicans writing in candidates on the ballot, which had no candidates that year.

Mayor Ed Gainey beat incumbent Mayor Bill Peduto in that race.

Over 60,000 Democrats voted in Pittsburgh’s mayoral primary this year, and nearly 5,000 Republicans cast ballots.

Gainey lost the Democratic race to Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, a former city councilman and son of the late Mayor Bob O’Connor. Retired police officer Tony Moreno won the Republican nomination over small business owner Thomas West.

Voye told the county elections board that 82,000 Allegheny County voters cast their ballots through the mail. Of them, 67,000 were Democrats and 13,000 were Republicans.

Elections officials received 862 ballots they were unable to count because of various issues, including ballots returned without the secrecy envelope, those that were not signed and those that were received after election day.

About 500 ballots arrived the Thursday after the election, Voye said.

“That’s unfortunate,” he said. “We want to count every ballot that’s cast.”

The three-member board — which includes Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato, County Councilwoman Bethany Hallam, and Cindy Kirk, a former county councilwoman — unanimously approved the election results.