How Many People Register On Election Day In Wisconsin?

The claim: Wisconsin voter turnout jumped from 67% in 2016 to 89% in 2020

The long wait for presidential election results has created a void in which citizens are seeking information on how nosotros got here — a void being filled often with poorly researched information.

Donald Trump Jr. was amid the many on social media the twenty-four hour period subsequently the election reacting to voting numbers without start considering or researching whether they're legitimate.

The president'southward son tweeted "I'm calling bull****," at nearly 2 p.m. on November. 4, sharing another tweet that claimed turnout in Wisconsin jumped from 67.34% in 2016 to 89.25% in 2020. Eric Trump, another of the president'southward sons, posted the same matter on Facebook, maxim, "Looks like fraud!"

It fed into the false narrative swirling amid conservatives that Wisconsin and other central states went to Democratic candidate Joe Biden as a result of voter fraud.

Elizabeth Quirmbach, right, registers Ayuka Sinanoglu, center, outside of University of Wisconsin-Madison's Memorial Union in Madison, Wis., on Oct. 19, 2020.

The turnout claim — retweeted based on Trump Jr.'s share more than than xiii,000 times — is absurd and based on a misunderstanding of basic ballot math. Twitter has since suppressed the original tweet, noting it "might exist misleading virtually an election." Information technology is misleading.

USA TODAY has reached out to Trump Jr. for annotate.

More than:Fact check: That spike in the Wisconsin vote tally was expected and legitimate, not fraud

The real turnout numbers

Wisconsin had more than 3.six million registered voters heading into Ballot Mean solar day, and more 3.2 million Wisconsinites voted in the presidential race.

But those aren't the numbers used to calculate turnout hither.

For starters, Wisconsin allows same-twenty-four hours voter registration, and so that number of registered voters goes upwardly throughout the solar day. In 2016, for case, 12.7% of voters registered on Election Mean solar day, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Even more important, registered voters is the wrong figure entirely for calculating turnout. Voter turnout in a aforementioned-24-hour interval registration state is based on the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot.

So when you divide the number of votes cast in Wisconsin — 3,278,963 every bit of Nov. 5 — by the voting-age population in Wisconsin (four,536,293 as of 2019, according to the elections commission), you get a turnout rate of 72.3%.

That'southward the highest rate ever behind the 2004 election, only solidly in the range of by presidential contests here.

Contempo presidential election turnouts in Wisconsin:

2020 — 72.3%
2016 — 67.iii%
2012 — 70.4%
2008 — 69.ii%
2004 — 72.9%
2000 — 67%

Information technology is also worth noting that while Biden received about 250,000 more votes than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton did in 2016, Trump exceeded his own 2016 totals by 14.6% percent, or most 200,000 votes.

So, a good chunk of the increased turnout was due to his supporters.

More than:Fact check: Wisconsin has more than registered voters than ballots cast

Our ruling: False

We rate this claims Faux because it is not supported by our research. The purported difference in turnouts isn't due to fraud or something nefarious, it's due to bad math.

Turnout is measured as a percentage of eligible voters, not registered voters. Trump Jr.'s figures use eligible voters for the 2016 figure simply registered voters for 2020. Using the proper denominator for 2020 shows a turnout around 72%, firmly in the range of by presidential elections.

Our fact-check sources

Donald Trump Jr., Nov. 4, tweet
Eric Trump, Nov. 4, Facebook post
MIlwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nov. five, 2020, Wisconsin ballot results
Wisconsin Elections Commission, Wisconsin Voter Turnout Statistics, accessed Nov. 5, 2020
New York Times, Aug. 1, 2017, 2016 Wisconsin Election Results

Contact Eric Litke at (414) 225-5061 or elitke@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ericlitke.

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