Voter Turnout Across Oakland County for Nov 8, 2022 Election

(Kurt Metzger, Nov. 10. 2022)

Oakland County, MI – The Nov. 8, 2022 Election is in the books, and it is time to look at voter turnout.

The turnout Countywide was just over 60 percent (60.8%), a decrease from the 64.5 percent recorded in the 2018 Midterm.

A quick look at community results (see the 2 charts for details – one for townships, the other for cities), shows a fairly similar turnout pattern to previous elections.  At the top of the heap is Novi township at 84.4 percent.  While impressive, one must understand that there are only 135 registered voters in the township, meaning that turnout pressure is rather high and personal.  Moving to communities with more than 1,000 registered voters, we have the perennial winners – Huntington Woods at 79.1 and Pleasant Ridge following behind at 76.0 percent.  Seven other communities (5 cities and 2 townships) surpassed the 70 percent threshold.

The bottom tier of turnout communities was also quite familiar to past elections.  Pontiac, at 30.9 percent, once again had the lowest turnout, followed by Royal Oak township (38.6) and Hazel Park (46.4).  All other jurisdictions had turnouts exceeding 50 percent.

Only 5 communities experienced an increase in turnout over 2018 – Novi twp. (9.1 percentage points), Clarkston, South Lyon, Addison township and Huntington Woods.

Lake Angelus saw the largest decrease in turnout, dropping from 83.7 to 74.4 percent.  It was followed by Auburn Hills (-8.4 percentage points), Southfield city (-7.0) and Bloomfield Hills (-6.8).  Both Pontiac (-6.5) and Royal Oak township (-4.9) fell significantly below their low 2018 turnouts, while Hazel Park dropped by only 1.7 percentage points.

Oakland County’s Transit Millage passed, receiving a majority yes vote in 32 of the county’s 51 voting jurisdictions.  57.11% voted yes and 42.89% voted no.

For more election results visit the Oakland County Clerk’s Election Page.

For more stories about voter turnout and other interesting numbers, visit the Data-Based Stories Archives on Oakland County Times. Thanks to Data Expert Kurt Metzger for this work! And thank you to the Pontiac Community Foundation for sponsoring our candidate interview series.