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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Voter turnout in US
Message-ID: <246@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Dec-84 20:55:34 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.246
Posted: Thu Dec  6 20:55:34 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Dec-84 05:54:31 EST
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard  Carnes)
Distribution: net
Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
Lines: 44

In article <> werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) writes:
>	Traditionally, the United States has had the second worst voter
>turnout of all nations that have an elective government~. Second, that is,
>only to Botswana.
>	Well, this year, for still unexplained reasons, the voter turnout in
>Botswana swelled to almost 70%, well eclipsing the United State's 52.4%, and
>leaving the United States with the world's worst voter turnout.
>[Source: NY Times, Dec.1]

The voter turnout in the other Western democracies is much higher than that
in the US (up to 96% in Australia, as I recall).  Some reasons for the low
turnout in the US:

1.  Voters must register in person in the US, whereas in Europe I believe one
may register by mail (I'm not up on the situation in Botswana).  It cost me
a fair amount of trouble to register, and I'm sure that's the case for many
others as well.  The comparative difficulty of registering probably accounts
for a good chunk of the lower percentage in the US.

2.  Voting takes place on a weekday in the US.  Does anybody have any idea
why?  

3.  There exists no mass-based working-class party such as British Labour in
the US which would serve to mobilize the working-class and poor voters, as
is indeed the case in western Europe.  (The Democratic Party?  Are you
kidding?)  This sector of the population has historically voted in lesser
numbers in the US, for various reasons that I won't go into.  

Someone on the net expressed the opinion a few weeks ago that the political
views of nonvoters don't count.  This could mean either that they are
politically ineffective (which is unquestionable) or that they are
unimportant and should be ignored by policy-makers.  Anyone care to defend
this latter proposition?  Since voters are generally more affluent, better
educated, and whiter than nonvoters, the low voter turnout biases the
American political system in favor of the former group, and the more
powerful maintain their dominance over the less powerful.  As usual....

Martin Van Buren was elected by 11% of the voting-age population (including
women and slaves).  The president elected by the highest percentage of the
voting-age population was LBJ with something over 40%.  Reagan's "landslide"
reelection was by about 30% of the electorate.  

Aren't you glad you live in a democracy?

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes