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Voter turnout in the United States

presidential elections
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The broadest historical trends in voter turnout in the United States presidential elections
Current events
Random article have been determined by the gradual expansion of voting rights from the initial restriction to
Donate to Wikipedia white male property owners aged twenty-one or older in the early years of the country's
Wikipedia store independence, to all citizens aged eighteen or older in the mid-twentieth century. Voter turnout
in the presidential elections has historically been better than the turnout for midterm
Interaction
elections.[1]
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About Wikipedia Contents [hide]
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1 Income and education
Recent changes
Contact page
2 Women's suffrage and gender gap
3 Race, ethnicity, and voter turnout
Tools 4 Youth voting turnout
What links here 5 Other eligibility factors
Related changes 6 Turnout statistics
Upload file
7 See also
Special pages
8 References
Permanent link
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Income and education [ edit ]

Income and educational

Print/export
attainment are significant
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factors affecting voter turnout.
Download as PDF
Printable version
Educational attainment is
perhaps the best predictor of
Languages voter turnout, and in the 2008
Français election those holding
Edit links
advanced degrees were three
times more likely to vote than
those with less than high school
education. Income correlated
well with likelihood of voting as
well, although this may be Rates of voting in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election by
income
because of a correlation
between income and
educational attainment, rather
than a direct effect of income.

Women's suffrage
and gender gap [ edit ]
There was no systematic
collection of voter turnout data
by gender at a national level
before 1964, but smaller local
studies indicate a low turnout
among female voters in the Rates in voting in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election by
years following Women's educational attainment
suffrage in the United States.
For example, a 1924 study of
voting turnout in Chicago found that "female Chicagoans were far less likely to have visited
the polls on Election Day than were men in both the 1920 presidential election (46% vs. 75%)
and the 1923 mayoral contest (35% vs. 63%)."[2] The study compared reasons given by male
and female non-voters, and found that female non-voters were more likely to cite general
indifference to politics and ignorance or timidity regarding elections than male non-voters, and
that female voters were less likely to cite fear of loss of business or wages. Most significantly,
however, 11% of female non-voters in the survey cited a "Disbelief in woman's voting" as the
reason they did not vote.

The graph of voter turnout percentages shows a dramatic decline in turnout over the first two
decades of the twentieth century, ending in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment to the
United States Constitution granted women the right to vote across the United States. But in
the preceding decades, several states had passed laws supporting women's suffrage. Women
were granted the right to vote in Wyoming in 1869, before the territory had become a full state
in the union. In 1889, when the Wyoming constitution was drafted in preparation for
statehood, it included women's suffrage. Thus Wyoming was also the first full state to grant
women the right to vote. In 1893, Colorado was the first state to amend an existing
constitution in order to grant women the right to vote, and several other states followed,
including Utah and Idaho in 1896, Washington State in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon,
Kansas, and Arizona in 1912, Alaska and Illinois in 1913, Montana and Nevada in 1914, New
York in 1917; Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma in 1918. Each of these suffrage laws
expanded the body of eligible voters, and because women were less likely to vote than men,
each of these expansions created a decline in voter turnout rates, culminating with the
extremely low turnouts in the 1920 and 1924 elections after the passage of the Nineteenth
Amendment.

This voting gender gap waned

throughout the middle decades
of the twentieth century, and in
recent decades has completely
reversed, with a higher
proportion of women voting
than men in each of the last
nine presidential
elections[when?]. The Center for
American Women and Politics
summarizes how this trend can
be measured differently both in Voter turnout by sex and age for the 2008 US Presidential
terms of proportion of voters to Election.

non-voters, and in terms of the

bulk number of votes cast. "In every presidential election since 1980, the proportion of eligible
female adults who voted has exceeded the proportion of eligible male adults who voted [...]. In
all presidential elections prior to 1980, the voter turnout rate for women was lower than the
rate for men. The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every
presidential election since 1964..."[3] This gender gap has been a determining factor in several
recent presidential elections, as women have been consistently about 15% more likely to
support the candidate of the Democratic Party than the Republican candidate in each election
since 1996.[4]

Race, ethnicity, and voter turnout [ edit ]

The passage of the Fifteenth

Amendment to the United
States Constitution gave
African American men the right
to vote. While this historic
expansion of rights resulted in
significant increases in the
eligible voting population, and
may have contributed to the
increases in the proportion of
votes cast for president as a
percentage of the total
population during the 1870s, Voter turnout in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election by
race/ethnicity.
there does not seem to have
been a significant long-term
increase in the percentage of eligible voters who turn out for the poll. The disenfranchisement
of most African Americans and many poor whites in the South during the years 1890-1910
likely contributed to the decline in overall voter turnout percentages during those years visible
in the chart at the top of the article. Ethnicity has had an effect on voter turnout in recent years
as well, with data from recent elections such as 2008 showing much lower turnout among
people identifying as Hispanic or Asian ethnicity than other voters (see chart to the right).

Youth voting turnout [ edit ]

Recent decades have seen increasing concern over the fact that youth voting turnout is
consistently lower than turnout among older generations. Several programs to increase the
rates of voting among young people—such as MTV's "Rock the Vote" (founded in 1990) and
the "Vote or Die" initiative (starting in 2012)—may have marginally increased turnouts of those
between the ages of 18 and 25 to vote. However, the Stanford Social Innovation Review
found no evidence of a decline in youth voter turnout. In fact, they argue that "Millennials are
turning out at similar rates to the previous two generations when they face their first
elections."[5]

Other eligibility factors [ edit ]

Another factor influencing statistics on voter turnout is the percentage of the country's voting-
age population who are ineligible to vote due to non-citizen status or prior felony convictions.
In a 2001 article in the American Political Science Review, Michael McDonald and Samuel
Popkin argued, that at least in the United States, voter turnout since 1972 has not actually
declined when calculated for those eligible to vote, what they term the voting-eligible
population.[6] In 1972, noncitizens and ineligible felons (depending on state law) constituted
about 2% of the voting-age population. By 2004, ineligible voters constituted nearly
10%.[citation needed] Ineligible voters are not evenly distributed across the country – 20% of
California's voting-age population is ineligible to vote – which confounds comparisons of
states.[citation needed]

Turnout statistics [ edit ]

U.S. presidential election popular vote totals as a percentage of the total U.S.
population. Note the surge in 1828 (extension of suffrage to non-property-
owning white men), the drop from 1890–1910 (when Southern states
disenfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites), and another
surge in 1920 (extension of suffrage to women). Note also that this chart
represents the number of votes cast as a percentage of total population, and
does not compare either of those quantities with the percentage of the
population that was eligible to vote.

%
Voting Age Population
Election Turnout [clarification needed][7] Turnout of
(VAP) [clarification needed][7]
VAP[7][8]
1876 81.8%
1860 81.2%
1840 80.2%
1880 79.4%
1888 79.3%
1896 79.3%
1844 78.9%
1856 78.9%
1868 78.1%
1884 77.5%
1892 74.7%
1864 73.8%
1900 73.2%
1848 72.7%
1872 71.3%
1852 69.6%
1908 65.4%
1904 65.2%
1960 109,672,000 68,836,000 62.8%
1916 61.6%
1952 99,929,000 61,552,000 61.6%
1964 114,090,000 70,098,000 61.4%
1968 120,285,000 73,027,000 60.7%
1956 104,515,000 62,027,000 59.3%
1912 58.8%
1940 84,728,000 49,815,000 58.8%
2008 229,945,000 131,407,000 58.2%
1836 57.8%
1828 57.6%
1928 56.9%
1936 80,174,000 45,647,000 56.9%
1944 85,654,000 48,026,000 56.1%
2004 219,553,000 122,349,000 55.7%
55.5%
2016 250,056,000 (estimated)[9] 138,847,000 (estimated)[9]
(estimated)[9]
1832 55.4%
1992 189,493,000 104,600,000 55.2%
1972 140,777,000 77,625,000 55.1%
2012 235,248,000 129,235,000 54.9%
1976 152,308,000 81,603,000 53.6%
1984 173,995,000 92,655,000 53.3%
1980 163,945,000 86,497,000 52.8%
1932 75,768,000 39,817,000 52.6%
1948 95,573,000 48,834,000 51.1%
1988 181,956,000 91,587,000 50.3%
2000 209,787,000 105,594,000 50.3%
1920 49.2%
1996 196,789,000 96,390,000 49.0%
1924 48.9%
1789
1792
1796
1800
1804
1808
1812
1816
1820
1824

Note: The Bipartisan Policy Center has stated that turnout for 2012 was 57.5 percent of the
eligible voters, which they claim was a decline from 2008. They estimate that as a percent of
eligible voters, turn out was: 2000, 54.2%; in 2004 60.4%; 2008 62.3%; and 2012 57.5%.[10]

Later analysis by the University of California, Santa Barbara's American Presidency Project
found that there were 235,248,000 people of voting age in the United States in the 2012
election, resulting in 2012 voting age population (VAP) turnout of 54.9%.[11] The total increase
in VAP between 2008 and 2012 (5,300,000) was the smallest increase since 1964, bucking
the modern average of 9,000,000–13,000,000 per cycle.

See also [ edit ]

Voter turnout
Voting rights in the United States

References [ edit ]
1. ^ New York Times Editorial Board (2014-11-11). "Opinion | The Worst Voter Turnout in 72
Years" . The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2018-01-29.
2. ^ Allen, Jodie T. (2009-03-18). "Reluctant Suffragettes: When Women Questioned Their Right to
Vote" . Pew Research Center. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
3. ^ "Gender Differences in Voter Turnout" (PDF). Rutgers University Center for American
Women and Politics. 2017-07-20. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
4. ^ Waldman, Paul (2016-03-17). "Opinion | Why the 2016 election may produce the largest
gender gap in history" . Washington Post. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
5. ^ Kiesa, Abby; Levine, Peter (2016-03-21). "Do We Actually Want Higher Youth Voter
Turnout?" . Stanford Social Innovation Review. Retrieved 2018-01-29.
6. ^ McDonald, Michael P.; Popkin, Samuel L. (December 2001). "The Myth of the Vanishing Voter".
The American Political Science Review. 95 (4): 963–974. JSTOR 3117725 .
7. ^ a b c Between 1932 and 2008: "Table 397. Participation in Elections for President and U.S.
Representatives: 1932 to 2010" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United
States: 2012. U.S. Census Bureau.
8. ^ Between 1828-1928: "Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections: 1828 - 2008" . The American
Presidency Project. UC Santa Barbara. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
9. ^ a b c "2016g - United States Elections Project" . www.electproject.org.
10. ^ "2012 Election Turnout Dips Below 2008 and 2004 Levels: Number Of Eligible Voters Increases
By Eight Million, Five Million Fewer Votes Cast" (PDF). Bipartisan Policy Center. 2012-11-08.
Retrieved 2018-01-29.
11. ^ "Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections" . UC Santa Barbara American Presidency Project.
Retrieved 2018-01-29.

v·t·e United States presidential elections [hide]

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Results (Summary · Elections in which the winner lost the popular vote ·
Electoral College margins · Electoral College results by state ·
Electoral College
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and Popular vote
Popular vote margins) · Contingent election · Faithless elector ·
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Related topics
October surprise · Red states and blue states · Swing state ·
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House elections · Senate elections · Gubernatorial elections

Categories: United States presidential elections statistics

This page was last edited on 30 January 2018, at 23:24.

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