The broadest historical trends in voter turnout in the United States presidential elections have been determined by the gradual expansion of voting rights
from the initial restriction to male property owners aged twenty-one or
older in the early years of the country's 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 elections.
Age, education, and income
Rates of voting in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election by income
Rates in voting in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election by educational attainment
Age, income and educational attainment are significant factors
affecting voter turnout. Educational attainment is perhaps the best
predictor of voter turnout, and in the 2008 election those holding
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 because of a correlation between
income and educational attainment, rather than a direct effect of
income.
Age difference is associated with youth voter turnout.
Berman and Johnson's (2000)
argument affirms that "age is an important factor in understanding
voting blocs and differences" on various issues. Young people are
typically "plagued" by political apathy and thus do not have strong
political opinions (The Economist, 2014). As strong political opinions
may be considered one of the reasons behind voting (Munsey, 2008),
political apathy among young people is arguably a predictor for low
voter turnout. Pomante and Schraufnagel's (2014) research demonstrated
that potential young voters are more willing to commit to vote when they
see pictures of younger candidates running for elections/office or
voting for other candidates, surmising that young Americans are "voting
at higher and similar rates to other Americans when there is a candidate
under the age of 35 years running". As such, since most candidates
running for office are pervasively over the age of 35 years (Struyk,
2017), youth may not be actively voting in these elections because of a
lack of representation or visibility in the political process. "Only 30
per cent of millennials think it's 'essential' to live in a democracy,
compared to 72 percent of those born before World War II" (Gershman,
2018). Considering that one of the critical tenets of liberal democracy
is voting, the idea that millennials are denouncing the value of
democracy is arguably an indicator of the loss of faith in the
importance of voting. Thus, it can be surmised that those of younger
ages may not be inclined to vote during elections.
Education is another factor considered to have a major impact on voter turnout rates.
Burden (2009) investigated the relationship between formal education
levels and voter turnout. He demonstrated the effect of rising
enrollment in college education circa 1980s, which – as expected - did
result in an increase in voter turnout. However, "this was not true for
political knowledge" (Burden, 2009); a rise in education levels did not
have any impact in identifying those with political knowledge (a
signifier of civic engagement) until the 1980s election, when college
education became a distinguishing factor in identifying civic
participation. This article poses a multifaceted perspective on the
effect of education levels on voter turnout. Based on this article, one
may surmise that education has become a more powerful predictor of civic
participation, discriminating more between voters and non-voters.
However, this was not true for political knowledge; education levels
were not a signifier of political knowledge. Gallego (2010) also
contends that voter turnout tends to be higher in localities where
voting mechanisms have been established and are easy to operate – i.e.
voter turnout and participation tends to be high in instances where
registration has been initiated by the state and the number of electoral
parties is small. One may contend that ease of access – and not
education level – may be an indicator of voting behavior. Presumably
larger, more urban cities will have greater
budgets/resources/infrastructure dedicated to elections, which is why
youth may have higher turnout rates in those cities versus more rural
areas. Though youth in larger (read: urban) cities tend to be more
educated than those in rural areas (Marcus & Krupnick, 2017),
perhaps there is an external variable (i.e. election infrastructure) at
play. Smith and Tolbert's (2005) research reiterates that the presence
of ballot initiatives and portals within a state have a positive effect
on voter turnout.
Another correlated finding in his study (Snyder, 2011) was that
education is less important as a predictor of voter turnout in states
than tend to spend more on education. Moreover, Snyder's (2011) research
suggests that students are more likely to vote than non-students. It
may be surmised that an increase of state investment in electoral
infrastructure facilitates and education policy and programs results in
increase voter turnout among youth.
Wealthier people tend to vote at higher rates.
Harder and Krosnick (2008) contend that some of the reasons for this may
be due to "differences in motivation or ability (sometimes both)"
(Harder and Krosnick, 2008), or that less wealthy people have less
energy, time, or resources to allot towards voting. Another potential
reason may be that wealthier people believe that they have more at stake
if they don't vote than those with less resources or income.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs might also help explain this hypothesis from
a psychological perspective. If those with low income are struggling to
meet the basic survival needs of food, water, safety, etc., they will
not be motivated enough to reach the final stages of "Esteem" or
"Self-actualization" needs (Maslow, 1943) – which consist of the desire
for dignity, respect, prestige and realizing personal potential,
respectively.
Women's suffrage and gender gap
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 years following Women's 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%)."
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.
Voter turnout by sex and age for the 2008 US Presidential Election.
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.
The Center for American Women and Politics summarizes how this trend
can be measured differently both in terms of proportion of voters to
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..."
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.
Race, ethnicity, and voter turnout
Voter turnout in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election by race/ethnicity.
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, 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.
Youth voting turnout
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 2004)—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."
Other eligibility factors
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.
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%.
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.
Turnout statistics
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.
| Election | Voting Age Population (VAP) | Turnout | % Turnout of VAP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1789 |
| ||
| 1792 |
| ||
| 1796 |
| ||
| 1800 |
| ||
| 1804 |
| ||
| 1808 |
| ||
| 1812 |
| ||
| 1816 |
| ||
| 1820 |
| ||
| 1824 |
| ||
| 1828 | 57.6% | ||
| 1832 | 55.4% | ||
| 1836 | 57.8% | ||
| 1840 | 80.2% | ||
| 1844 | 78.9% | ||
| 1848 | 72.7% | ||
| 1852 | 69.6% | ||
| 1856 | 78.9% | ||
| 1860 | 81.2% | ||
| 1864 | 73.8% | ||
| 1868 | 78.1% | ||
| 1872 | 71.3% | ||
| 1876 | 81.8% | ||
| 1880 | 79.4% | ||
| 1884 | 77.5% | ||
| 1888 | 79.3% | ||
| 1892 | 74.7% | ||
| 1896 | 79.3% | ||
| 1900 | 73.2% | ||
| 1904 | 65.2% | ||
| 1908 | 65.4% | ||
| 1912 | 58.8% | ||
| 1916 | 61.6% | ||
| 1920 | 49.2% | ||
| 1924 | 48.9% | ||
| 1928 | 56.9% | ||
| 1932 | 75,768,000 | 39,817,000 | 52.6% |
| 1936 | 80,174,000 | 45,647,000 | 56.9% |
| 1940 | 84,728,000 | 49,815,000 | 58.8% |
| 1944 | 85,654,000 | 48,026,000 | 56.1% |
| 1948 | 95,573,000 | 48,834,000 | 51.1% |
| 1952 | 99,929,000 | 61,552,000 | 61.6% |
| 1956 | 104,515,000 | 62,027,000 | 59.3% |
| 1960 | 109,672,000 | 68,836,000 | 62.8% |
| 1964 | 114,090,000 | 70,098,000 | 61.4% |
| 1968 | 120,285,000 | 73,027,000 | 60.7% |
| 1972 | 140,777,000 | 77,625,000 | 55.1% |
| 1976 | 152,308,000 | 81,603,000 | 53.6% |
| 1980 | 163,945,000 | 86,497,000 | 52.8% |
| 1984 | 173,995,000 | 92,655,000 | 53.3% |
| 1988 | 181,956,000 | 91,587,000 | 50.3% |
| 1992 | 189,493,000 | 104,600,000 | 55.2% |
| 1996 | 196,789,000 | 96,390,000 | 49.0% |
| 2000 | 209,787,000 | 105,594,000 | 50.3% |
| 2004 | 219,553,000 | 122,349,000 | 55.7% |
| 2008 | 229,945,000 | 131,407,000 | 58.2% |
| 2012 | 235,248,000 | 129,235,000 | 54.9% |
| 2016 | 250,056,000 | 138,847,000 | 55.7% |
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%.
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%.
The total increase in VAP between 2008 and 2012 (5,300,000) was the
smallest increase since 1964, bucking the modern average of
8,000,000–13,000,000 per cycle.
