Voter Turnout Rates in Oakland County Communities, 2022 Primary

(Kurt Metzger, Aug. 3, 2022)

Oakland County, MI –

The August 2022 Primary Election is ‘in the books,’ and, while I will leave it to others to analyze the candidate results, my role is to provide an analysis of voter turnout.

The countywide turnout was 29.9 percent, four and a half percentage points less than the last primary in 2018 when 34.4 percent of the county’s registered voters turned out.   Forty-eight of the 51 communities had 2022 rates below those of the 2018 primary.  The only three communities that improved their turnouts were Rose, Addison and Milford townships.

I have created two charts to present the data for the 51 communities that report turnout (voter data for the 10 villages in the county are included in their respective townships).  The first chart tracks communities (28) with turnout rates higher than the county average.  The second chart tracks those communities (23) with turnout rates less than the county average.

Only one community – Huntington Woods – surpassed 50 percent turnout.  Their 50.8 percent turnout was 4.2 percentage points behind their #1 ranking in 2018.  Coming in second once again was Pleasant Ridge at 48.1 percent.  This was 4.6 percentage points below the 2018 turnout.  Only two other communities – Lake Angelus and Lathrup Village – surpassed 40 percent turnout in 2022.  As with the above, both maintained their 2018 ranking while lowering their rates by 5.1 and 9.3 percentage points, respectively.

Consistency, unfortunately, also showed itself on the low end of turnout.  Pontiac, Royal Oak township and Hazel Park had the lowest turnout rates in 2022, as they did in 2018.  While their rankings shifted slightly, Wixom, Madison Heights and Holly Township remained the next three lowest turnout communities.

Pontiac turnout was 12.8 percent, down from 19.2 percent in 2018; Royal Oak township came in at 18.3 percent, down from 21.7 percent; and, Hazel Park came in at 20.4 percent, down from 23.0 in 2018.

While this is the first primary since the Michigan Citizen Redistricting effort, resulting in more competitive districts, it is still disappointing to see turnout rates dropping across the county.  We shall see what happens in November.

For more stories about voter turnout and other interesting numbers, visit the Data-Base Stories Archives on Oakland County Times. Thanks to Data Expert Kurt Metzger for this work!

Thank you to Pontiac Community Foundation for sponsoring our Election series.