In order for us to understand how voter turnout has an effect on the decisions made in congress and the consequent path of our country, the first thing we have to do is wrap our heads around a few pictures of that voter turnout in order to gain a better grasp on what we’re dealing with. Luckily, the United States Census tracks all of that data for us, so all we have to do is chart and analyze it.
In order to do that, the first thing I did was produce a histogram of the data at hand:
This histogram shows the distribution of voter turnout percentage since 1964.
What is quickly apparent by this graph is that we’ve never had a turnout percentage of more than 70% at any point in the last 44 years. In fact, the most common turnouts are in the 40-45% and 55-60% range. Averaged out, then, we’re looking at 50% — actually a median of 54.7% and a mean of 53.72% — turnout over 44 years. Is that enough people to properly elect representatives of an entire nation?
In order for a republic to function properly, to ensure that representatives feel as though they are beholden to a “mandate from the people”, we should never see that few people turnout in any election. It’s what the writers of the Federalist Papers would refer to as a “faction”, a term I use a lot and one which I’ll explain in a future entry.
Let’s look at a microcosm of what the histogram shows us. If there are 100 people, it would seem to stand to reason that 50 of them aren’t going to relinquish control to the other 50. A majority of half of a population, after all, is just over 25%. However, that is – in effect — what happens in this country every election cycle. Politicians are getting sent back to their jobs by just over one quarter of the nation, in some cases by far fewer people.
There’s more to talk about here, and I have more charts to share with you in future posts.
The data for the above chart was taken from the US Census report of July, 2009. The calculations are based on a total population of people who were eligible to vote in that year.