It's official! Just signed the canvass for the 2020 primary. I'm grateful to my team and county clerks that made it work (one of only 5 states to get an "A" grade) and to the legislature and others who had the vision to see the benefits of vote by mail. 1/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/07/14/are-american-elections-pandemic-proof-a-state-by-state-scorecard/

Despite having to deal with the uncertainty of a pandemic, elections staff pulled off an election with record turnout for a primary and only 5,000 people voting in person on election day. Here are some of the incredible numbers... 2/

The big statewide race this year was obviously the GOP gubernatorial race. And while the statistical turnout was impressive, the raw numbers are eye-popping...more than doubling the 2016 gubernatorial primary. No-one predicted numbers close to this high. 3/

Overall primary turnout is misleading since not all voters get a ballot, and the GOP has closed primaries while others have open, or semi-open primaries. Comparing year to year is not always helpful. Even so, there was a big increase over past years: 4/

And finally, while we didn't have many big races on the Democratic ticket, we can compare the 2018 1st Congressional District primary with the 2020 race. Even there we see a huge increase in ballots cast: 5/

2020: CD1 (D) = 22,909
2018: CD1 (D) = 12,712

Elections take so much work behind the scenes in the best of times. These are not the best of times. Congratulations to those who won...but our biggest congratulations should go to the countless staff and volunteers that made this vote-by-mail election enormously successful. /end