Voter Turnout in Wisconsin Didn’t Jump 22
The Claim
Wisconsin voter turnout increased by 22% between 2016 and 2020.
News posted on
Emerging story
The day after the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a stat that claimed voter turnout in Wisconsin jumped from 67.34% in 2016 to 89.25% in 2020.
Users across social media continued to push this claim.
Misbar’s Analysis
The Misbar team has determined that this claim is false. Twitter has since suppressed the original tweet, noting it "might be misleading about an election."
Wisconsin had over 3.6 million registered voters heading into Election Day, with more than 3.2 million voting in the presidential race. These figures don’t calculate voter turnout, however.
Wisconsin allows for same-day voter registration, so that number of registered voters goes up throughout the day, but that number doesn’t calculate turnout either. Voter turnout in a same-day registration state is based on the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot.
For example, as of November 5, there were 3,278,963 votes cast in Wisconsin. When that number is divided by the voting-age population (4,536,293 as of 2019, according to the elections commission), the turnout rate is 72.3%.
The claim made by Donald Trump Jr. is in fact false because the calculation to determine the rate is incorrect. The unofficial turnout rate is 72.3%.
