Voting Rights

   Much is made of voter turnout statistics, but what do the data really mean?
   Depending on which group of numbers you select and how you frame the set, a clever cruncher can use the chosen numbers to "prove" almost anything.
   The task for readers, then, is to know the source and the relationship of the question and the answers.
   For example, to cite a voter turnout rate of 61.4 percent in the presidential election of 2016 is to calculate the number of votes cast and compare that to the total voting age population.
   Problem: Not everyone in that age group is registered, or even eligible. Some choose not to register, even though they are eligible. Others -- convicted felons -- for example, cannot vote even if they want to. And still others, such as long-term visitors or employees of international corporations or foreign governments, may be residents of voting age but are not citizens and therefore ineligible to register or vote in the U.S.
   A better data set to consider may be the one gathered by the Pew Research Center for the 2016 election. Pew calculates the turnout rate to be 55.7 percent of the total voting age population, but a rate of 86.6 percent of all registered voters.
   So to use the lower number -- 55.7 percent of the voting age population -- is to portray a serious problem of apathy among Americans when it comes to voting.
   But to cite the higher number -- 86.6 percent of citizens registered to vote who actually did so -- shows a far better picture of voter activity.
   So which is the more useful number to emphasize if you want to encourage more citizens to vote? The lower one, of course.
   In addition, this is an overall number for the entire nation. There are separate data sets for regions and for people according to race, ethnicity and gender.
   Moreover, to compare that overall number to similar data for other countries enables activists to prove a lower voter participation rate for Americans than for many other nations.
   There is no doubt, then, that Americans do not exercise their right to vote at a rate strong enough to guarantee survival of a democratic republic.
   In short, voting in America is not done at a satisfactory rate. The more that people vote, the stronger will the democratic republic of the United States of America be.
   Consider some average voter participation rates:
   With a turnout rate of 60 percent, this means that a candidate can win an election with a simple majority of half that, or 31 percent of the people.
   Therefore, a government of the people is selected by less than one-third of all the people.
   So much for majority rule.

   Moreover, for the fourth time in America's history, a candidate for president won through to the Oval Office without a majority of the popular votes cast by citizens. Rather, he became president by winning a majority of the votes in the electoral college, a complicated system devised by the founders because they feared a demagogue could manipulate the popular vote.
   Perhaps those days are gone, and it's time to consider electing a president with the popular vote alone.
   As noted on this blog previously, we get the kind of government we deserve, not necessarily the kind we need.