General Election. “2016 was a record breaking year for elections in California,” Secretary of State Alex Padilla said. “A record 19.4 million Californians were registered to vote for the General Election. Over 14.6 million Californians voted—by far the most ever. The percentage of eligible Californians casting a ballot was the second highest figure in 30 years.”
“Voting by mail continues to be popular. This was the sixth straight statewide election in which a majority of ballots cast were vote-by-mail ballots,” Padilla added.
Key statistics from the November 8, 2016 General Election:
- 14,610,509 total ballots cast (previous record was 13,743,177 in 2008)
- 75.27% turnout of registered voters (Most since November 2008)
- 58.74% turnout of all eligible Californians (Second highest figure in past 30 years)
- Vote-by-mail ballots accounted for 57.79% of all votes cast.
- 19,411,771 registered voters, the most ever heading into a General Election. (previous record was 18,245,970 in November 2012)
- Hillary Clinton won California with 62.2% of the vote. Clinton won by a margin of more than 4.2 million votes over Donald Trump. This is the largest margin of victory for a Presidential candidate in California since 1936.
Counties with the highest voter turnout (by % of registered voters casting a ballot)
| Marin |
89.0% |
| Sonoma |
86.8% |
| Alpine* |
86.0% |
| Mono |
84.8% |
| Sierra* |
84.3% |
*Denotes county with an all vote-by-mail election.
Source: SOS
