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By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Publisher

As lines built outside of doors for nearly two hours at some polling locations, Tuesday, Nov. 5 marked another successful General Election turnout.

For both Shelby County and the state of Alabama, voter turnout for the 2024 General Election showed drastic improvement from the midterm election in 2022, while numbers were similar to those we saw for the most recent General cycle in 2020.

With 100 percent of the vote counted by early Wednesday morning, 114,806 residents from Shelby County had cast a ballot out of 178,383 registered voters in the county.

That gave the county a voter turnout of 64.36 percent for the election, which was slightly down from 2020’s 69.56 percent, but still remained strong for the county with a percentage higher than 60.

Among the state’s 10 largest counties, Shelby County had the highest voter turnout according to the immediate projections.

It also fell short of matching the 2016 turnout of 71 percent, but the total number of registered voters has grown by 35,570 since 2016 and 13,416 more since 2020.

Meanwhile, statewide numbers were also strong once again in this year’s election cycle with a 58.33 percent turnout across the state.

Out of 3,868,043 registered voters in the state, 2,256,402 had cast their ballot with all counties reporting Wednesday morning.

The number was slightly lower than the 2020 number, which finished at 63 percent, which featured some of the highest turnout nationwide in more than a century.

Voter turnout much improved from the midterm elections held in 2022, which saw a low voter turnout of 41.83 percent in Shelby County, which was at least higher than the 23.69 percent in the Primary election that same year.

Statewide, the turnout was also a much-improved sight compared to the midterm election with an increase of more than 20 percent from two years ago.

During this year’s election, each Republican candidate in Shelby County received at least 63 percent of the vote en route to earning each vacant seat in the county.

Ultimately, turnout wasn’t as strong as the last two General Election cycles, but was still strong across the state, while many feel that early voting could help make those numbers even stronger.