For those who care....

There are many predictions in the upcoming 2014 midterms, but one constant fact looms is that the number of ballots cast in this elections will be significantly lower than the previous years before. Why is this sense of apathy so prevalent in midterm elections? Unlike the presidential elections in which voter participation was as high as 57.1% in 2008, in 2010 the turnout only reached 36.7% in which the house Republicans achieved control over house. In the 2012 elections Obama was able to win with a 53.7% voter turnout in large part due to African American votes. However larger portions of the United States are not allowed to vote, including 8.5% of people voting age due to their lack of citizenship and 3.2 million citizens convicted of a felony. Nevertheless there are 4.7 million American citizens living overseas which puts the voting eligible population (VEP) at 222.3 million.

When we look back at the history of elections in the United States voter turnout was higher through out the  early 1800s for midterm elections over presidential. Unfortunately until 1824 only white land owning males could vote, but even in 1840 white males accounted for over 80% of the vote which was 60% than the elections of 1836. These numbers would only increase as African Americans would get the right to vote in 1870 and women in 1920. Despite these increases the drop in recent years has duped many political experts  With many speculations on this drop off in votes during the midterm, one states that those who are more partisans are more likely to vote while those who belong to a less advantaged party will stay at home. This  and the apparent lack of "wow" according to political theorist James E. Campbell are why voting levels are so low. However it notes that when a surge in voting does occur it is usually targeted at one party or another. Brian Knight Brown a researcher at brown uses the "surge and decline theory" to chronicle why presidents usually lose the house after re-election which he calls the "Presidential penalty" (Desilver).

Today when we look at the several factors like age, race, education or non educated and sex, we see the vast differences in the participation. When we look at the role education plays only about 38% of non high school graduates voted, while those with advanced degrees averaged above 60%. With the issue of age those 18-24 had only a 41.2%, while those over 60 years of age had a voter turn out of over 70%.  Women had a higher percentage of votes casted in 2012 too, accounting to 63.7% of this survey while men only reached 59.7%. Non Hispanic white voters had a 61.4% turnout while African American were at 66.2 percent (United States Census Bureau). All this shows a dramatic number of voters who simply just don't show up or are ineligible, despite these numbers reaching above 50% on the presidential elections. With recent midterm polling numbers these will only decline further and with Knight predicting a somewhat larger show up for the GOP, even larger portions of the house and senate could be lost, not due to a  massive turnout in voters but there lack of.


Work Cited

Desilver, Drew. "Voter turnout always drops off for midterm elections, but why?" Pew Reasearch 

     Center. Last modified July 24, 2014. Accessed September 19, 2014. http://www.pewresearch.org/ 

     fact-tank/2014/07/24/voter-turnout-always-drops-off-for-midterm-elections-but-why/. 

United States Census Bureau. "Voting and Registration." United States Census Bureau. 
     http://thedataweb.rm.census.gov/TheDataWeb_HotReport2/voting/voting.hrml.