KALISPELL — Flathead County made history during the 2024 general election recording its highest voter turnout to date.
Voter turnout in the Flathead was 89.5% with almost 4,000 more ballots returned than during the 2020 general election.
Just over 64,000 ballots were cast, most were absentee, with over 12,000 voters who went to the polls.
According to election officials, there was a minor discrepancy of seven ballots.
Key statistics from the 2024 General Election:
- Total registered voters (active and inactive): 84,331
- Active registered voters: 71,580
- Overall voter turnout (active voters): 89.5%
- Ballots cast by type:
- Absentee: 50,820 (79.3%)
- Poll: 12,105 (18.9%)
- Provisional: 1,123 (1.8%)
- Absentee voter turnout: 95%
- Poll voter turnout: 70%
- Rejected absentee ballots: 399 (due to signature issues or lack of signature)
- Uncounted ballots due to no affirmation: 20
- Misrouted ballots from other counties/states: 10
A post-election audit involving hand-counting ballots from six precincts — 9, 11, 15, 25, 28, and 54 — revealed a total variance of just +1 vote in Precinct 9, well within the allowable margin of error (5 votes or less than 0.5%). Of the 7,408 ballots audited, the overall margin of error was just 0.0135%.
