I ' m talking about Michigan . in 2012 the number of voters in Michigan was almost equal to the number of voters who cast a ballot in Michigan this year and the number of voters in Michigan who left President vote blank in 2012 was 49 k compared to 90 k who left the President vote blank this year . I don ' t know the voting data for every state . You only need to look back 4 years to get your answer though . Practically the same amount of people voted in Michigan in 2012 as voted in Michigan in 2016 yet the number of people who left the vote for President blank increased by about 40 k . That makes complete sense when you also recognize that Hillary and Trump both had the worst favorability numbers in the history of polling data . Counties that Obama won handily , Hillary lost .