FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — As the election dust settles, the nation will begin to look back at how votes were cast on Tuesday. Democrats may be looking for where they could have received more votes, and Republicans will look at a successful strategy to put Donald Trump back in the White House. Much of that discussion boils down to bringing more voters to booths, something typically tracked by the metric of voter turnout. The number is represented as a percentage of the number of people who voted -- and were eligible to do so -- divided by the total number of people who could have voted. Lower turnouts are typically deemed bad. In Allen County, the problem has drawn ire from local political leaders in the past. In the 2022 primary election, Allen County pulled a measly 13% voter turnout, which Allen County GOP chairman Steve Shine deemed "shameful." But what does a low turnout show about a voting block? "Political scientists have always debated, is a lower voter turnout a sign of satisfaction with people? That they think the stakes aren't that great so they don't have to participate," said Mike Wolf, political science expert and professor at Purdue University Fort Wayne. "What if we had 95% voter turnout, would that be a demonstration of people freaking out?" Wolf's point stands that an extremely high voting turnout may indicate a dire situation that drives every voter to the polls - as if the fate of their country was on the line. Wolf guessed this may have been the case in 2020 when voter turnout was at a huge high. With issues like COVID-19 and the economy spawning political messages dripping with vitriol and division, more people decided to vote. When you take into account more than just the numbers, it's not just binary good or bad when you see high voter turnout rates. The abstract tells a different story the numbers don't see. "Do people really want to go back to 2020? Both the vitriol of the campaign and the post-campaign stuff. I don't really want to return to that," Wolf said. "I don't know if this is an indication that the temperature has lowered a little bit or what." He thinks it's a real possibility that the manner in which political races are run has a huge impact on how many people vote. Allen County voter turnout in the last four presidential elections. "We have to balance the things that drive people, part of that is this polarization and negative partisanship that certainly gets people to vote," Wold said while questioning if that sort of campaigning is good for democracy. This year in Allen County, a 57.7% voter turnout is a definite drop from the last presidential election, but that number isn't concerning to Wolf. "These rates don't set off alarm bells," Wolf said. And much like his take on voter turnout, his confidence in Allen County voting at sub 60% rate is due to things that the numbers are blind to. "I do think both parties in Allen County have recruited really good candidates ... they're sharp," Wolf said. "We're lucky to have really good media outlets ... the news is good as far as what we need to have people engaged in democracy."