Tuesday, November 11, 2014

2014 National Voter Turnout Was The Lowest Since 1942

The numbers in this chart are from the United States Election Project.

I have posted before about the pitiful turnout in Texas on election day this year. Only a shameful 33% of the registered voters in the state bothered to vote, making it the state with the worst turnout of registered voters. Now I learn that Texas was not alone in having a poor turnout.

The PBS Newshour has gotten statistics from the University of Florida's United States Election Project (USEP), and it turns out that the nation as a whole had a rather pitiful turnout of only 36.4%. That's the lowest turnout since 1942 -- seventy years ago.

The USEP didn't just look at registered voters. They based their numbers on the voting-eligible population of each state (whether registered or not). This is a more stringent method of figuring turnout.

Still, there were a few states that did pretty well in turning out voters -- with seven states having a turnout of over 50% (with Maine at 59.3% and Wisconsin at 56.9% leading the way). I personally think this turnout is still too low for a democracy, but it looks damn good when compared to the national average.

Meanwhile, other states did very poorly -- with seven states unable to even get 30% of the eligible voters to the polls (with Indiana at 28% and Texas at 28.5% being the states with the lowest turnout). The 10 states with the highest and lowest turnouts are listed below:

10 Highest Voter Participation States of 2014:
1. Maine 59.3%
2. Wisconsin 56.9%
3. Alaska 55.3%
4. Colorado 53%
5. Oregon 52.7%
6. Minnesota 51.3%
7. Iowa 50.6%
8. New Hampshire 48.8%
9. Montana 46.1%
10. South Dakota 44.6%

10 Lowest Voter Participation States of 2014:
1. Indiana 28%
2. Texas 28.5%
3. Utah 28.8%
4. Tennessee 29.1%
5. New York 29.5%
6. Mississippi 29.7%
7. Oklahoma 29.8%
8. DC 30.3%
9. New Jersey 30.4%
10. Tie-West Virginia/Nevada 31.8

2 comments:

  1. Unfortunately too many have the same opinion as my wife...My vote don't count and I so busy doing other things that are really important (true) that I don't know who to vote for as I don't follow the political games.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good summation of the situation. It belies the popular narrative of a GOP electoral wave.

    Between the tsunami of corporate and rich-guy money on one hand and dismal voter engagement on the other, anyone who says this election was a mandate for anything has one helluva sense of irony. That said, if the majority sits home, it's hard to argue that the participatory minority can't have its say.

    ReplyDelete

ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. And neither will racist,homophobic, or misogynistic comments. I do not mind if you disagree, but make your case in a decent manner.