Voter turnout in the Philadelphia region has reached levels not seen in municipal elections for at least a decade, with some counties recording a 30 percent uptick in voters showing up to the polls, write Stephanie Lai and Andrew Seidman for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

In several suburban counties, tens of thousands more ballots were cast this year than in any recent off-year elections.

Nearly 40 percent of Chester County’s 351,925 registered voters cast ballots last week, giving Democrats control of the Board of Commissioners for the first time. This is nearly 30,000 more votes cast than in the local election two years ago, or a 28 percent increase. This rise in votes cast significantly outpaced the growth in voter registrations over that period.

Terry Madonna, a pollster at Franklin and Marshall College, believes that this uptick in turnout can be attributed to the nation’s political climate. National tensions have also now spread to the local level and have stirred more people into voting in elections that usually have a lower turnout.

“What we have now is a motivated electorate,” said Madonna.

Read more about voter turnout in The Philadelphia Inquirer here.

[uam_ad id=”80503″]

.

[uam_ad id=”80502″]