CENTRE COUNTY — The 2024 general election took place on Tuesday, Nov. 5, and Centre County saw a historic voter turnout with the highest rate of residents casting their ballot in 20 years.
While Centre County’s results for this election are not official, data from the Centre County Board of Elections and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Election Results offers a glimpse into this major turnout and how Centre County residents voted.
According to the unofficial results, 80,324 of 109,856 registered voters casted a ballot this election making the county’s turnout rate 73.12%. The last time Centre County’s voter turnout neared this rate was in 2004 with a rate of 75.09% when 65,013 of 86,581 registered voters participated in the election.
The Board of Elections in Centre County still needs to finish canvassing mail-in ballots set aside for potential issues, including military/overseas and provisional ballots.
Additionally, the county had to rescan about 13,401 ballots following the election due to a software issue delaying the reporting of vote counts. The ballots were rescanned the morning after the election on Wednesday, Nov. 6, and updated to the unofficial results by the evening.
The current unofficial election data revealed that Centre County as a whole voted in favor of the Democratic presidential nominee for the fifth general election in a row. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris won the county in 2024 with 50.6% of the vote compared to Republican nominee Donald Trump’s 48.4% of the vote. However, the former president was declared the winner in the state of Pennsylvania and in the country’s race for the presidency.
Looking into data from the past four general elections, the 2024 race actually saw less Centre Couty residents registered to vote than in 2012, 2016 and 2020. Despite higher registration numbers in previous years, more voters actually participated in this election compared to the years prior, thus creating historic turnout in 20 years.
GENERAL ELECTION TURNOUT SINCE 2000
| YEAR | REGISTERED VOTERS | VOTES CASTED | VOTER TURNOUT | COUNTY’S PRESIDENTIAL PICK |
| 2024 (Results are unofficial at the time of The Gazette’s publication) | 109,856 | 80,324 | 73.12% | Kamala Harris (D) |
| 2020 | 112,090 | 78,094 | 69.67% | Joe Biden (D) |
| 2016 | 123,341 | 77,700 | 63.00% | Hillary Clinton (D) |
| 2012 | 112,920 | 70,042 | 62.03% | Barack Obama (D) |
| 2008 | 106,093 | 76,338 | 75.09% | Barack Obama (D) |
| 2004 | 86,581 | 65,013 | 75.09% | George W. Bush (R) |
| 2000 | 88,218 | 50,110 | 56.80% | George W. Bush (R) |
*Data from the Centre County Board of Elections and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Election Results
Breaking down the data in 2024 across the county’s precincts showed that the rural precincts which voted in favor of Trump made up the five highest turnout percentages countywide with Taylor Township having the biggest turnout rate at 89.3% with 434 of 581 registered voters casting a ballot.
However, the five precincts with the largest numbers of ballots cast despite turnout were in the Centre Region and voted in favor of Harris. The most votes in the county were casted at the State College East — Penn State precinct 3,975 votes cast.
Finally, the precincts with the lowest turnout were five State College precincts with the State College East Central 3 precinct having the lowest turnout in the county at 39.02%.
