12 October 2016

Montana registered voters in 2016 could exceed total for 2012

Regular voter registration in Montana closed yesterday with the total of registered voters at 672,977. Late voter registration begins this morning and concludes at 2000 MST on 8 November. Montana’s Secretary of State updates the totals at the close of business each day.

The final tally of registered voters for the 2012 general election was 681,608. That included 20,003 late registrations, approximately 2.9 percent of the total. In 2008, late registrations accounted for 2.7 percent of all general election registrations.

I calculated the 2008/2012 average late registration fraction for each county and used that number to estimate late registrations for 2016. The total: 19,061, which would bring the totat at the end of 8 November to 692,178, an increase of 10,570 over 2012.

However, Montana’s voting eligible population has increased since 2012. If the proportion of the VEP that’s registered in 2016 is the same as in 2012, the final registration number for the 2016 general election should be 704,212.

Not all counties have more registered voters than in 2012. Flathead and Gallatin Counties, the fastest growing big counties in Montana, have thousands more registered voters. Yellowstone, Missoula, and Cascade Counties have thousands less.

Download Excel spreadsheet with county level detail and Flathead Memo’s late registration estimates. You can also download from Flathead Memo an Excel spreadsheet with turnout, VAP, and VEP, data for 1920–2016. The latter spreadsheet augments the data set available at MT SecST’s website.