Franklin County voter turnout for the 2025 general election looked like most other off-year elections: low.
About 26% of registered voters cast ballots in Franklin County, according to unofficial results from the Franklin County Board of Elections. That was a sharp decline from 2023, when statewide issues enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution and legalizing recreational marijuana drove unusually high turnout across Ohio.
But in other odd-year elections — when high-interest races for president, Congress and other state offices aren’t on the ballot — Franklin County Board of Elections data show that turnout locally has mostly cratered.
Out of 882,964 registered voters, 229,906 cast ballots in the 2025 general election—a significant drop from 2023, when participation reached nearly 50%. It was similar to other off-year elections over the last decade though.
A decade ago, Franklin County had another outlier in the 2015 election. That year, Andrew J. Ginther, then the city council president, was running for his first term as Columbus mayor against Zach Scott, who was the Franklin County sheriff at the time. Participation hit about 37% that year as Columbus voters turned out to choose the successor to then-Mayor Michael B. Coleman, the longest-serving mayor in city history.
Franklin County’s highest turnout over the last decade came in the 2020 presidential, when about 72% of registered voters—more than 636,000 people— cast ballots. That election also had the distinction of setting new records for voting by mail as Ohioans isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lowest point came in 2019, when just over 22% of voters cast ballots.
Trending reporter Amani Bayo can be reached at abayo@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: How many ballots were cast in Franklin County? See 2025 election turnout numbers
Reporting by Amani Bayo, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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