Who Votes? Who Cares?

Voter turnout is at the lowest level since 1978.

If you don't vote, don't complain.

   The 2014 congressional election turnout rate of 41.9 percent was the lowest since the survey began in 1978, the Census Bureau said.
   Thus, fewer than half of eligible Americans bother to vote in Congressional elections, according to government records. Turnout is better in Presidential election years, but not by much. The lowest rate was posted in 1996, when only 49 percent -- half of the number of Americans eligible to vote -- showed up to vote in the election that returned Bill Clinton to the White House for a second term. The highest turnout rate for a presidential election was in 1960, according to government records, but even then it was just 62.8 percent, meaning that more than one-third of the electorate bothered to exercise their voting franchise.
   In contrast, voter turnout in Canada for federal elections is commonly more than 70 percent, and sometimes close to 80 percent.
   Since 1968, the turnout rate in America has declined, despite an increase in the eligible population, said the Bipartisan Policy Center, to 62.3 percent in 2008 to just 57.5 percent in 2012. And in that most recent Presidential election year, the turnout percentage was down from 2008 in every state and the District of Columbia except two -- Iowa and Louisiana, the Center said.
   Older voters show up in greater numbers, the Census Bureau said. Some 60 percent of those over 65 cast ballots in 2014, but only 23 percent of voters under 34 showed up.
   Overall, the turnout rate dropped 7 points from 1978, to a low of 41.9 percent last year. In 2010, the last Congressional election years, overall turnout was 45.5 percent.
   What does all this mean? "Voting rates tend to increase significantly with age," said Thom File, a Census Bureau sociologist and author of the bureau's latest report on voting during non-Presidential election years. Moreover, these age differences "cut across racial and ethnic groups as well," File said.
   Bottom line: Senior citizens of all demographic groups vote more than their children and grandchildren. Yet government policy changes often have more effect on young people than on older citizens.
   Moral: If you don't vote, you shouldn't complain.