Historic Turnout and Why Voting is Cool Again

by: tremayne

Mon Nov 03, 2008 at 21:59


Okay, take a look at this graph of turnout percentage over the last half century or so:

The numbers come from here except for 2008 where the number, 64 million percent, is Gallup's estimate. The magnitude of that percentage is the reason why Gallup's two likely voters models suddenly converged; Gallup decided turnout for Obama-friendly demographics was going to be much higher than earlier estimates.

Voting in presidential elections declined for 4 straight decades with the exception of 1992 (did Perot draw in some voters who usually don't participate?) reaching a low point in 1996.  Tomorrow night when everyone is adding up electoral votes, Senate and House seats I'll be watching the turnout percentage. Even if we don't hit 64 percent it seems quite likely we'll exceed 2004 levels and therefore have three straight increases in turnout percentage.

The question I have for readers is why? Is it a coincidence? Have we had, since 2000, a growing sea of discontent that is now bearing down like a tidal wave? Is the big number for 2008 entirely due to Barack Obama and his popularity?

Personally, I see an Internet activism argument in these numbers. It would no doubt be an oversimplication to attribute it entirely to the Internet but it's hard, given the perfect match of the years of voting increase with the rate of Internet adoption and use also rising not to put two and two together.

I'm really interested to get other people's takes on this. Why, over the past 12 years now, have we seen a steady rise in the percentage of people voting in presidential elections?

 
tremayne :: Historic Turnout and Why Voting is Cool Again

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Historic Turnout and Why Voting is Cool Again | 29 comments
In Oregon 85% ballot return expected in mail-in election. (4.00 / 1)
In my county, Marion, the county clerk says he expects 90% paraticipation. That's what mail-in voting can do.
90% participation of REGISTERED voters, or all residents? (0.00 / 0)
Sadly, not all adult Americans are registered, and some aren't even elligible for voting because of a criminal record (what about reintegrating them into society? D'oh). Don't be confused, "voter turnout" actually means "turnout of voting-age population" and is always lower than participation of registered voters, in some places and some times alarmingly so:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/...

Imho this is an important point that shouldn't be overlooked. That in a year where the overwhelming majority of registered voters actually participates in the election, the voter turnout will still be less than 70%, shows how important voter registration efforts are. 30% of the voting age population not participating when important decisions are made is not exactly reason for satisfaction. There's still a lot of work to be done for promoting democracy!  

[ Parent ]
A few "obvious" answers (4.00 / 5)
-Threats to our rights as Americans
-The Religious Right trying to force their beliefs down our throats
-The slow dismantling of the New Deal
-A focus on the powerful at the expense of the people
-Economic policies which reward the connected, and penalize working people
It's the kids. (4.00 / 5)
That's part of the reason.  Another under-appreciated piece of the puzzle are young voters.  The elephant in the room for the GOPers is that they're on the verge of losing an entire generation of voters.

Look at North Carolina's early voting.  Youth vote started as an 8% or 9% share of the electorate.  People freaked out.  "The kids are screwing us again!"  Many of us told those folks to relax.  The kids would show up.  Sure enough, youth share shot up to 15% when all was said and done.  The kids started showing up late, but they did show up.

Generation X didn't vote.  Millennials do.

That's a big piece of my take.

And underlying that (4.00 / 7)
Gen Xers lived through their 20s in a generally decent economy. The early 1990s recession was not long-lived and many Xers benefited from the 1990s boom. That meant they did not need to turn to the political system to ensure their economic security.

It's a totally different story for us Millennials - we are being driven into politics by the dire economic straits.

And of course, during the 1990s the right-wing seemed like a nuisance rather than a mortal threat to our core values as individuals and Americans. The Bush presidency has made it impossible to ignore politics.

[ Parent ]
Partly, yes. (4.00 / 2)
There's more to it than that.  It also connects with tremayne's point about the Intertubez.  Millennials have generally grown up in an age of interconnectedness.  Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, blogs like this one, etc.  Millennials see voting and participation as cool.  X'ers are apathetic and individualistic.  It's very much cultural in a lot of ways, in my opinion, along with the economics and everything else.
[ Parent ]
this is really crucial (4.00 / 1)
This is a great point. Forgetting (for the moment) the political aspects of this election, I think people have become more social, more willing to engage with strangers, more willing to "show up." Think about all those stupid 90s fads -- the flash mobs and so forth -- turned into MeetUps and a billion other vaguely subversive interactions.

[ Parent ]
The GOP is in danger of losing (4.00 / 2)
forever.

Fact is the GOP thrives in an environment of low voter turn out.  By making people wait in line for 8 hours.  By setting up a registration process that is prone to error and hence challenge.  And just by generally being pricks.

Universal registration and voting by mail have the likelihood of completely wiping the GOP off the electoral map. And with the Dems in control of DC, there's no reason not to change the way we vote... because the current system is bullshit.  

[ Parent ]
All of the above (4.00 / 7)
And the influence of Howard Dean and the 50 state strategy. Montana's votes for prez actually count this year, at least to the Obama campaign.
A variety of factors (4.00 / 1)
Enthusiasm: The Right loved GW and the Left had no doubts about the differences between the parties when 2004 came around.  4 years later, the feelings are even stronger with Democrats loving Obama (86% of his supporters have a very favorable view of him according to NBC/WSJ, largest since Reagan '80)

Organization: Rove and GW took targeting to a whole new level in 2004, winning the election even though Kerry met his turnout goals.  Now the Democrats have caught up and seem to have surpassed the Republicans.  This has led to previously low voting groups voting at much higher rates: youth, African-Americans, Hispanics, single women, etc.  Technology has certainly played a large role in this increased organizational capacity.

Culture:  The millennial generation is much more civic-minded and engages in political activity at higher rates than Gen-Xers did at the same age.  Similarly, the rise in immigration initiatives and anti-immigrant sentiment over the last two decades convinced many Hispanics to gain citizenship, register to vote, and flex their political muscle.

Election Law:  More states have same-day-registration, early voting, etc.

"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak" -Paul Wellstone

Um... (0.00 / 0)
According to most polls, the "youth" aren't so interested in voting that they are coming out early.  
[ Parent ]
The Internet (4.00 / 2)
Well - as I look at the data, the difference between 1996 and 2000 is statistical noise. 2004 and 2008 are outliers, but isn't that easily attributable to Karl Rove? Excite the base, which also excites the other base - passions on both sides increase turnout.

But if I was looking for an overarching answer, I might point to the internet. A constant stream of news, the ease by which you can learn about stuff, and even the nuts and bolts of being able to get voter registration forms online all lowered the barriers of entry to civic duty. Much of the interest in this election among the 18-30 crowd can be traced pretty directly back to Facebook and Digg.

This has the benefit of also explaining the forty year decline which had preceded it, the era dominated by television. I think Al Gore laid this one out pretty well in The Assault on Reason. But in a nutshell, TV turned politics into a mass marketed consumer product, which consumers grew ever number to over time. Then the internet came along, and politics met social networks, rekindling the spirit of the old town hall.

Neat. (0.00 / 0)
   Why doesn't anyone ever talk about Republican turnout?  Do Republicans go to the polls no matter how demoralizing the environment is?  I'm not so sure.

John McCain lets lobbyists shape his economic policy
I doubt a Republican (4.00 / 2)
would ever wait in line 8 hours to vote... thing is, the GOP makes sure they have plenty of voting machines to cater to Republican voters.  
[ Parent ]
If there is an anti-gay/ (0.00 / 0)
anti-woman initiative on the ballot, yes.

Why do you think we've seen so many of those over the past eight years?

Montani semper liberi

[ Parent ]
Perot (0.00 / 0)
Yes.  He did draw a lot of non-voters out.  It is part of why the idea that Perot "robbed" the elder Bush is quite dubious.  Between the Perot voters who would have picked Clinton and those who just wouldn't have shown up if Perot wasn't on the ballot, it is pretty unlikely Bush could have caught Clinton either in PV or even in just enough states to win the EC.

People have come to realize the value of government (4.00 / 2)
George Bush represents the apotheosis of Republican, conservative view of the relationship between government and society.  Ironically this feckless son of the elites is the one who has made it eminently clear just waht a disater that vision is when put into practice.

In a negative way they have seen how when government is neglected and negligent, it causes harm to everyday people's lives.  In a positive way, they can see that government has a role in protecting them, helping them, providing the access to oppurtunity for all fairly and making their lives and their children's lives better in countless ways.  The Republican party still thinks like Reagan that government is the the problem.  Democrats and those who will vote for Democrats in this election have come to realize that government can be a solution.

In Obama's acceptance speech, he said something he hadn't really said before...by my lights as a liberal, it's the best thing he's ever said

 

[re McCain]For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.  In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own.  Out of work?  Tough luck.  No health care?  The market will fix it.  Born into poverty?  Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots.  You're on your own.

That Obama, the one who pivoted in August to talking about other people's lives, not his own biography, put him in to a position to benefit enormously from the finacial crisis that began Sept 15th.  

The Internet has had a very large role is making all of the above visceral and salient to people's lives.  The rise of the original Democratic party was coincident and tied to the rise of a new media, printed and widely distributed pamphlets and newspapers, that were sympathetic in both message and structure to the ideological framework of a party.    The internet, the netroots, the new media of the 21st century, has resonated in form and substance in the most fundamental way with the a progressive and Democratic party point of view.

In a less global way, I think the new media, was totally responsible for creating the meme around John McCain that he was unstable, angry, old, etc, etc.  This meme has now become the conventinal wisdom of the MSM. Just think where this campaign would be if the press still was John McCain's base.

So let's get to work creating the meme that good goverment means progressive government.  

PS I initally replied in this spot to say that in 1992, right after Perot withdrew, Clinton soared to 57% againt Bush and he stayed there until Perot reentered the race in Oct.  Perot didn't allow Bill Clinton to win, Perot kept Bill Clinton from the kind of landslide that Obama could get tomorrow.

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller

[ Parent ]
Didn't know this part (0.00 / 0)

PS I initally replied in this spot to say that in 1992, right after Perot withdrew, Clinton soared to 57% againt Bush and he stayed there until Perot reentered the race in Oct.  Perot didn't allow Bill Clinton to win, Perot kept Bill Clinton from the kind of landslide that Obama could get tomorrow.

Cool.  This year, no Perot to deny the mandate.

[ Parent ]
graying of america (0.00 / 0)
how much do you think the nation getting older account for it?
9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 (4.00 / 1)
I can't believe no one else said it.

As a Millenial (graduated high school in 2000), I'm going to make a sweeping, data-less claim that 9/11 and the Iraq War together totally changed the perceptions that my generation had of politics.  Politics went from a boring old-man's game played between two teams of crooks, to being something of fundamental importance -- life or death of the nation, really.  Being attacked at the center of our country by angry foreigners, then launching an aggressive war in the heart of the Middle East, all layered on top of a very scary climate change situation that was being largely ignored, turned politics into something really meaningful in an existential way.  You see this in Hollywood, which has a pretty good sense of the country's youth.  You would NEVER have seen the degree of activism from Hollywood, begging, pleading with people (young people) to vote, in 2000 or 1996.  Voting wasn't cool then; apathy and irony and above-it-all indifference was cool.  Now engagement and taking a stand is cool.  Yes, Hollywood has always been political, but look at the age and niche of the most visible highly-political actors.  It's not Barbra Streisand anymore; it's Matt Damon and Leo DiCaprio and will.i.am.  

In that way, the current moment is much more like the 60s than is commonly perceived.  Vietnam challenged the youth of America much more directly than Iraq does, but the moral ambiguity of our relations with the Middle East is similar, and the stakes are vaguely similar.  The 90s were a time when politics was just about money, whereas the 2000s are a time when politics is about who blows up whom, and how far the seas rise.  Youth turnout went up even with a candidate as obviously uninspiring as Kerry.  It was the events of those three years that drove that change, I say.

well... (0.00 / 0)
I hope people in poverty, rape, homophobia, sexism, and a lot of other domestic problems inspire as well.  War is not as consistent as these problems.  If it's just about war, then where will these people be when the war is over?  
[ Parent ]
Also, you could consider adding a discontinuity to that graph (4.00 / 1)
between 1968 and 1972.  The voting age was lowered to 18 in 1971, and the reason for the decline in turnout is generally attributed to that expansion of the electorate into a lower-turnout group.  The electorate of 1968 was different by law from the electorate of 1972, and a discontinuity in that section (rather than a declining line) might better represent that change.
But actually the voter turnout in 1972 was higher than before! (0.00 / 0)
The decline only happened in 1974 and may show that young voters were less interested in voting for Congressmen than in voting for presidential candidates. Or it was because of a growing dissatisfaction with Congress after Watergate.  

And, no confusion pls, mathematically it is correct to show the timeline without interruption. The legal age for voting changed, but this led to an increase of the voting age population from 124 million to 140 million, about 15%. If all other factors wold have stayed the same, the percentages sholdn't have changed. But the votes for Congress actually declined more than 20%, so this can't simply be explained away by young voters refsing to participate. Something must have happened to the attitude of the population in general. Would be interesting to read more about this.

[ Parent ]
Well (4.00 / 1)
A lot of folks didn't vote in '96 because Dole was a snore, and Clinton was so popular that we all knew it would be a blowout.  Starting in 200, a lot of "get out the vote" activity has taken place.  And that is when the uptake began.  Also, during that time, states started allowing early voting.  This has become popular I assume in part due to Obama, but probably even more so because it has now been around for a couple of cycles. Some states, like Oregon, have made it extremely easy to vote by mail-in election.  So, I wouldn't lose control and attribute this to Obama or to anything uniquely 20-something.  Voters have been educated and states have created electoral reform in order to make it easier to vote.  
I would like to see the numbers before 1960, too (4.00 / 1)
Did the assasinations of liberal icons in the 60s play any role in the decrease of voter turnout? Or did the Vietnam war somehow lead to people losing faith that change was possible, instead of increased interest in voting to stop the war? Really, why did it take 40 years for the numbers to break the 60% barrier again? Or is this year just a temporary height, and the normal level is around 50%? A longer timeline would help getting this into perspective.
This is the highest turnout in 100 years (0.00 / 0)
According to the American Presidency Project a 64% turnout of voting-age Americans would be the biggest turnout since 65.4% turnout in 1908.
Historic Turnout and Why Voting is Cool Again | 29 comments
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