Voter participation in Tuesday’s spring election decreased across the city and state from the previous election in 2011, according to data from the city of Madison and the Government Accountability Board.
Twenty-four percent of the city’s registered voters participated in Tuesday’s election to decide who would serve on Madison’s Common Council and Wisconsin’s Supreme Court as well as in the next state superintendent position. Thirty percent of Madison’s registered voters headed to the polls in the April 2007 elections while 23 percent participated in April 2009.
On a state-wide level, the 24 percent voter turnout for the state Supreme Court marked a 10 percent decrease from the Court’s past election in 2011. However, the same 24 percent turnout for the superintendent position was a 6 percent increase from its previous election in 2009.
Voter turnout in Madison during the 2011 spring elections nearly doubled this year’s election to nearly 54 percent, much in response to Gov. Scott Walker’s controversial and newly drafted Act 10, which limited collective bargaining rights for public employees.
This year’s average voter turnout in areas with significant numbers of University of Wisconsin-Madison students was a slightly more than 16 percent.
District 8, which covers much of the UW-Madison campus and includes mostly student housing, saw a 7.5 percent voter turnout. Twenty percent of voters in District 4, which includes the Bassett and Mifflin Neighborhoods, turned out for the election.
District 2, which encompasses the Langdon Street area, saw a 30 percent voter turnout. District 13, which includes the Vilas and Greenbush neighborhoods, saw a 48 percent turnout.
