Talk:Voter turnout/Archive 1

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Archive 1

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Electoral college

Pretty much every detailed study of voter turnout has shown that electoral system makes little difference. Your "casual perusal of the statistics" is not very accurate. Even in that election close races had virtually nothing to do with voter turnout. Alaska had one of the highest turnouts, while battleground states Arizona and Nevada had very low turnout. - SimonP 04:25, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Well, the idea made (earmuffs!) "intuitive sense", and it didn't seem that it had been addressed yet, so I figured I'd do a quick analysis and see what I got (go MSExcel, go!). The 2000 numbers trended fairly strongly, so I thought it was worth mentioning and anyone with more extensive data could correct it if necessary.
At the time I just looked at the trend line, but the actual numbers (for 2000) are ~0.7% less voter turnout for each 100K votes of safe victory margin per state. Considering that the standard deviation of voter turnouts among all states was ~7%, this means that you get a full deviation below the mean of turnout in a state with a million votes safe margin of victory.
I was annoyed with your deletion because you seemed to be working from even less data than I was (?) and I was at least hoping that if it got deleted it would be for a good reason. Admittedly, however, since you gave me a hard time I found some data from 1996 and did the same schtick and the trend is much weaker (would take about 5 million votes margin to reduce turnout by a standard deviation). I didn't find data for any other elections. If you know of real studies, please post; it's not something I know much about, sorry to be defensive. --Chinasaur 06:05, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
For some numbers over the last twenty years see [1], what it shows is that turnout seems to have far more to do with long lasting cultural factors than on how competitive a race is. (The most noticeable trend seems to be that the lower average temperature of a state the higher the turnout). For a detailed analysis of how electoral systems affect turnout see [2] which finds that "the distribution of turnout among the three wider families of electoral systems appears to be largely random." While it seems logical that competitiveness and electoral system should have an effect on turnout, somewhat surprisingly, it does not. - SimonP 08:06, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for finding some links. Interesting stuff, but I actually don't see anything relevant to the electoral college on either of these pages. Also, some of the points on 2 suggest that electoral system, socioeconomics, and competitiveness make more of a difference than what our article currently suggests.
Basically, from 1 it's clear that there are some States that always tend to have better turnout than others; this is not something I ever meant to dispute. I don't argue that lopsidedness of the election is the overriding determinant of turnout. There are most likely other factors that have more of an influence. But statistically it's still possible, as far as I can determine, that lopsidedness has some influence.
From 2 we can glean that
  1. The electoral system (meaning first past the post, proportional representation, etc.) has relatively little influence on turnout. However...
    1. There is no mention made of electoral college versus other systems. The various systems that are compared are mostly relevant to a comparison between proportional versus plurality electoral systems.
    2. Further, there does seem to be some discernable improvement in voter turnout with proportional representation systems. I can't tell whether it is statistically significant, but it seems to be better than the turnout increase gained through existing compulsory voting systems.
  2. The U.N.'s Human Development Index seems to track voter turnout well, again statistical significance is unclear.
  3. Competitiveness (but note, not measured at all the same as what we were talking about) has a considerable effect on turnout.
The upshot is that perhaps the article should be changed slightly to reflect points 2 and 3. Regarding the effect of electoral college on State turnouts, I don't think there's anything conclusive yet. We need either a study that directly addresses electoral college, or I would also love to get data from more election years so I can do some futzing myself. Don't mean to put all the burden of proof on you; I will look for stuff too; but I don't have a good idea of where to start. Maybe Web of Science; I think they have humanities papers in their database? --Chinasaur 16:41, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
An electoral college system differs very little from a first past the post system, so I would expect any effect on voter turnout to be similar. There is evidence that countries using a solely proportional representation system do have higher turnouts; however, there are not many of these nations and the sample size is thus low, and states that use a pure rep by pop system tend to be small and uniform, factors that also tend to increase voter turnout. - SimonP 16:54, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)
Good points on the proportional rep stuff. I see that HDI and competitiveness are already mentioned in the article.
As far as the original dispute goes, I think we'd better be more clear on what we're arguing about. I see now that my point isn't really about electoral college, it's more just the idea that if the result is expected to be a landslide, people are less motivated to vote. Whether this applies to the national level (haven't yet seen any data strongly supporting or disproving) or the State level in elections where each State is counted FPtP (so far my cursory look at the data seems to support the idea) is a separate question.
I can see why you would say that the comparison of FPtP to other electoral systems essentially gets at the question of "landslide fatigue", but this is a pretty indirect way to look at the question. If you really want to make the argument though, then in the comparison with PR the idea seems to be supported, although as you say those numbers are pretty dicey.
The competitiveness numbers also seem to support the general idea, but in this case the numbers are not directly applicable and again it's a stretch to draw any real conclusion from these data.
So definitely, the analysis in 2 is not optimal for our current discussion, and it seems that there must be a better analysis of the "landslide fatigue" question available, at least on the national level. That would be the best place to continue the discussion, and then an additional analysis of State level could be in order. --Chinasaur 17:51, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Federal lower houses or national lower houses

The international comparison chart lists differences between federal lower houses, but many of these are not federal states. Should it be national lower houses? Peregrine981 03:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

That would be better. Tony 03:51, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Done - SimonP 04:00, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Percent of population or of eligible voters

Does this article (specifically figures and graphs) refer to the percent of registered voters of voting aged people or of the total population? This is an important distinction and the differentiation between these should be discussed (I only skimmed the article so I may have missed it, sorry, I'm in a bit of a rush) Broken S 22:39, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

The standard measure is percentage of eligible voters, and this is what is used throughout the article. It does say this in the opening line, and there is also an indirect discussion of how this can affect counts in the last paragraph of the institutions section. - SimonP 23:49, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Wow! I feel stupid! *hits self in the head* I knew I should have read more carefully. I didn't want to forget my comment though. Thanks for the answer. Broken S 01:36, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I do not believe the US 54% number is as a percentage of _eligible_ voters, but of _registered_ voters. The percentage should be appr. half if based on eligable voters, as only appr 50% of eligable voters are registerd?? For example, it is (was) said that 13% of (eligible) voters voted for Nixon?? Note that, typically, nations with "universal" healthcare,etc also have "automatic registration" of voters as well as a "census" every year. However, one can play games with the meaning of "eligible" (Qualified or entitled)??
Well all these statistics are really old, the chart is from data first printed in 1996, so who cares what the data represents, as it's not attributed to a year data. I believe that the 54% number is from voting age, not voting elegible.

Yes in the past there has been a low turn out rate for voters but this election there seems to be many younger generations voting. Why do you think that is?--Snowb7 (talk) 20:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Sweden statistic

Something's wrong with the Swedish numbers in the statistics there.. According to the official statistics, there were only 12 parliamentary elections 1960-1995 (inclusive), (60,64,68,70,73,76,79,82,85,88,91,94, see Elections in Sweden) and the average turnout was 89.7%. There were two referendums in that time period, which might account for the "14" figure cited, but including them gives 88.3%, which still doesn't account for the figure cited. Can someone detail how the numbers in the article were arrived at? If not, I suggest changing them to the official ones. --BluePlatypus 02:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Digging deeper, these numbers have errors in quoting the source, too (it gives 13, which is still wrong), also several other numbers have been cited wrongly. Also, the source (Franklin) is in turn getting his numbers from another source (Katz, "Elections and Democracy") who in turn got them from Mackie and Rose "International almanac of electoral history". So it's at best a fourth-hand source. That's not very good. Also, the Poland number isn't in the Franklin paper. Where did that come from? I'll see if I can verify these numbers. --BluePlatypus 23:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Legitimacy and high turnout

"There is consensus among political scientists and the general public that high voter turnouts are desirable.[5] A high voter turnout is generally seen as evidence of the legitimacy of the current system. Dictators have often fabricated high turnouts in ..."

Shouldn't this rather say that high turnout is desirable when the system is legitimate and low turnout is desirable when it's not? Michael Hardy 02:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

High turnout is desirable for supporters of the system, low turnout for opponents, whether the system is legit or otherwise (and legitimacy can be very POV). Especially in places where there is turmoil, say immediately following an invasion, civil war, revolution, or other regime change, supporters of the new regime try to get as many as possible out to vote, while opponents of the regime call for boycotts. Whether the new regime is legit or not depends on your POV. Assuming a democratic system, without compulsory voting, coercion, ballot-stuffing, etc, a high-voter turnout would (I think) be generally an indicator of voter acceptance (if not outright approval) of the particular electoral system; seems to me people opposed in a process tend to try to opt out. Conversely, low voter turnout might indicate disapproval or rejection, or maybe just apathy, or any number of reasons (hence the genesis of the article). It's hard to know what the electorate feels if they don't actually tell you. SigPig 04:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

registering to vote in USA

Isn't it so, that in the USA you have to register a good time beforehand to b able to vote? It's a little like the converse of compulsory voting. -MarSch 09:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you do have to register with the county to vote, but I don't think the time is much of a problem, maybe a week or less to process.--Adam (talk) 15:02, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Varies a lot state to state. Some states allow you to register at the poll and cast a provisional ballot, which is only counted if the registration pans out, which is kind of a messy process. This was one of the issues in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election. Toiyabe 17:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Reference for US suffrage data, 1840

In the Trends of decreasing turnout section, the United States is given as an exception to the general statement about limited suffrage in most nations before the late 19th century. The text states that the US "had near universal male suffrage by 1840." Can someone provide a reference? It doesn't make a lot of sense - check 1840 census numbers and compare the population of male slaves to that of all males. That's roughly 14.36% of the male population that definitely couldn't vote, and that's without looking into where the free colored males (2.11%) could or couldn't vote. In any case, this is potentially misleading. It should be rephrased for accuracy and clarity, preferably by someone with better references than I've got at the moment. -- Epimetreus 05:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

"Universal Male Sufferage" means that all male citizens are eligible to vote. Slaves were not considered to be citizens, see Dred Scott v. Sandford. Prior to ~1840 many states had property ownership restrictions on voters, meaning that, for example, a free white male who worked as a farm hand might not be allowed to vote. Toiyabe 17:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Image order

Since my edit summary was ignored, and later reverted, I'll put it here. I'm reversing the position of the first two images as I feel there is a potential POV bias to having the main image be one that's directly related to an ongoing war. Thus I feel it is more appropriate to use the Bangladeshi image at the top instead. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 06:49, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that you are imagining this. The picture not express a POV for or against the Iraq war. In my opinion (I wasn't the one who reverted you), the Iraq picture is better than the Bangladesh picture, which, in my opinion, seems to be the more important criteria. The lines of people in Iraq are actually a depiction of turnout whereas the Bangladeish picture is just a depiction of voting which does not suggest any relevance on turnout specifically. This was my understanding of why the images had been ordered the way they were. In what way do you think the image is biased? If you think the caption is misworded, for example, we can talk about rewording it. savidan(talk) (e@) 07:13, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I feel both pro and anti Iraq War sides have both harped on the phrase "voter turnout" quite a bit, not only in the United States but throughout at least the Western world. While we aim to be contextual, imagine if 1940s encyclopedias illustrated the Dictator article with images of Benito Mussolini (aha, I snuck past Godwin's Law there!). But to further tie the term "voter turnout" to immediate mental images of "Like those brave Iraqis who turned out to vote recently!" any more than necessary seems to me to border on an underlying POV. I do see what you mean about lineups versus individuals, perhaps we could both spend a few minutes looking for a compromise photograph? Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 07:20, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely, I would accept a compromise photograph. This article has space for more images. I have no idea where we would find one, though. Both of the current images are only usable because they are works of the US government. However, no matter what pro- and anti-war activists have said about turnout, this article is not POV in the image caption or even the way that it discusses Iraq turnout. It just states the facts: people expected turnout would be low; it was high. That's all she wrote. All of further analysis (in either direction) is in the mind of the reader, not in the article. I don't understand your Mussolini example at all. Timeliness is one of the advantages Wikipedia has over the encyclopedia's of the 1940s. savidan(talk) (e@) 07:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Timeliness yes, but it brings with it the ability to subtly sway public perceptions as well. Anyhow, here are some quick images I found, Zambia, Libera, 2004 Sierra Leone (which is a UN image), 1996 South Africa, 2004 India and Just for fun, 1899 Australian...that'll date things. There's no reason we can't use these images with a fairusein| tag, and we'd still be keeping the Iraqi and Bangladeshi images in, just to illustrate later points in the article. And I've got no particular attachment to these images, just a couple of examples I found Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 07:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm fine with any of those images as long as the copyvio checks out. I don't understand what your fair use rationale would be. This is a featured article, so there is a slightly higher standard as far as that is concerned. We can't just slap a fair use tag on it and hope for the best. If you can't find a fair use rationale for those, the only other thing that I was able to find were Rock the vote advertisements, from which screenshots would be fair use. But if you think Iraq is political, then I can only imagine what the subtext of a rock the vote ad would be. FVAP (Federal voting assistance program) theoretical should produce media that would be fair use (as a US government production) but I was unable to find any online, other than their (extremely) low-resolution logo. I've got non-wiki issues to deal with at the moment, so I'll leave the decision to you. I trust you. savidan(talk) (e@) 07:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Minor POV problems fixed

In the process of becoming featured, this article has obviously been through extensive review. However, I removed several instances of the word "problem" and "blame" (e.g. "X is to blame for the problem of decreased voter turnout). These words are POV because they presuppose that voter turnout is good and that factors that decrease it are bad. Certainly, this article should and does discuss factors that decrease and increase turnout, but it needs to walk the line of doing so in a neutral way. I did not change it when they were used in a term-of-art (e.g. free rider problem) or when referencing the a specific source (X person blames X for Y) because that is necessary to indicate the POV of the source (i.e. if X person thinks turnout is good or bad). But as I said, there were few instances of this and they are fixed now. Great work, everbody. savidan(talk) (e@) 07:01, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

'# of votes' in table

In the table showing voter turnout for each country, what does '# of votes' mean ??? 58.105.138.14 08:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I was just about to ask the same thing! Could it be # of millions of votes? Bit of an ambiguous description for an article that made article of the day.
I believe it means "# of votes held" (i.e. elections, plebescites, etc) between dates. SigPig 04:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

European Union

Perhaps someone wants to mention the voter turnout in European elections? All the info is available here: http://www.ena.lu/?doc=5487&lang=1 (change the language to English once inside the navigator). Stevage 08:47, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Most important factor is education - needs citation

the line 'The most important factor in voter turnout is education.' is not backed up by any statistical data or quote...--Greg.loutsenko 09:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

"Almost all political scientist feel that high turnout is desirable in a democracy"

It's a peakock term and a weasel word. To vote or not is a matter of personal choise. Eligible voter may not feel like voting becase (1) They are satisfied (2) They can't care (3) They feel disenfrancised by the system of voting (eg majoritarian system). First instance is good, the second instance neutral and the third instance bad. Substituting it with "some political scientist..." won't solve this problem. 82.25.41.91 FWBOarticle 09:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC) (didn't log in. sorry)

I agree, there are *many* weasel words in this article ("many feel that", "is believed to be") etc. Pity for a FA! Stevage 15:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

This article is highly biased toward rich, western, developed countries

The fact that poor are more likely to vote in India (and many other democracies in developing countries), invalidate many arguments in this article. This article need POV clean up. FWBOarticle

Actually Wikipedia and the internet in general is highly biased toward rich, western, developed countries. I wonder if that has something to do with the article's bias. I agree that many of the arguments in this article are invalidated by the facts though. --Jayson Virissimo 01:20, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

High Turn Out->Legitimacy?

If 90% voter turn out in which one precidential candidate (or one political party under Prime Ministership) win with 50.00000001% whiel the other side got 49.00000009%, this political process reflect that (national) consensus are highly divided. You could even argue that it is an example of fault of majoritarian system where 49.0000009%'s political demand are excluded. on the other hand, say voter turn out was 47% but one side won with 75% of votes. Some might say such result is an affirmation of the system. Another example that this article need POV clean up. FWBOarticle

Straw Poll about direction of this article

If I held a straw poll about the future direction of this article, how many people would participate? :) Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)

hehe. This is one reason wikipedia isn't a democracy. Anyway, we should first discuss what low voter turn out might indicate. Then, depending on the factors, we could discuss, in which instances, such low turn out are undesirable, as well as, some suggested policies to increase low turn out. Many appear to assume that low turn out by definition are bad. This appear to lead to policies to make voting easy (eg. postal voting). IMO, this type of attitude (and this article) miss the point. FWBOarticle
Since you're the only one who's replied thusfar, I guess we adopt your proposal for future straw polls as 100% in favour Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 13:12, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
One could say that the low turnout in this straw poll undermines its legitimacy. savidan(talk) (e@) 14:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
One could also say that the lack of responses to the straw poll indicate people are happy with the status quo. --Jayson Virissimo 01:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Elections in Italy no longer compulsory

In Italy, those who fail to vote run the risk of forfeiting some state benefits.

That's not true. Someone should investigate when, but since at least ten years, probably much more, voting is no longer compulsory in Italy. 87.2.206.254 (talk) 13:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Very US-centric

Almost every paragraph starts with discussion about the US, then mentions other countries as vague points of comparison. It would be nice if it could be more balanced. If this wasn't the main page, someone should probably put this template on it: Stevage 15:29, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Why don't people turn out again?

Just thought I'd point out that a certain statement in the first paragraph pretty much pointless. Observe the following quotation from first paragraph of the article: "In general, low turnout may be due to (1) disenchantment; (2) indifference; (3) contentment." That pretty much covers the basis, don't you think? 'People don't vote because they're either content, not content, or neutral' seems to be what this statement is saying. According to this reasoning, nobody should be voting because everyone falls into one of those three categories.

I think the idea is disenchantment means they don't think that voting will change anything, not necessarily the same thing as being not content in general. 86.138.64.88 22:38, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Young may not vote due to indifference or contentment. It is not o.k. to assert that young don't vote because they are disillusioned. It's bit of both, imo. Still we need POV attribution. FWBOarticle

Ease of voting

Another issue I don't see discussed in this article - and I wonder if there is much published work on this - is what the effect of some sort of system of voter qualification might have on both turnout and relevancy or quality of a vote. It's noted that in the U.S. voting registration requires multiple steps and thus discourages voting in some areas, while where registration is easy, higher turnouts result. I have always wondered whether requiring a potential voter to pass a civics test, or other similar, might result in a higher turnout of at least the registered voters (only the most motivated would go as far as to register), and further, whether the results of elections held under such a system might be "better" in the sense that those same voters would be less easily swayed by negative campaign ads, organizational sample ballots, or even party affiliation, etc. It would be interesting to see this explored here - what if any history there is of this.

In earlier part of history, francise was limited to landed gentry and above. Reading test was used to block lower class from voting. Yes, there are history but not so glorious one. FWBOarticle

Intentionally not registering

Another reason that some people have voiced to me for their failure to vote is that they have never registered because they wanted to avoid that other inconvenient civic task -- jury duty. Jury lists in Illinois were traditionally drawn from voter registration lists. Now most, if not all, courts in Illinois use both voter lists and lists of drivers licenses to select jurors. I have never heard of anyone refusing to drive because he wanted to avoid jury duty. -- DS1953 talk 23:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Percent of US population voting

The intro paragraph says:

For example, in the United States, scarcely half the population votes ....

I may be wrong but my understanding is that approx 50% of registered voters actually vote meaning that about 30% of the population votes. I am not sure of the actual numbers so I wont change the sentence but someone shoudl check since I am pretty sure nowhere near 50% of the population votes. Dalf | Talk 23:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p20-556.pdf (and others) state that close to 90% of registered voters vote in the USA. mdf 00:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It's amazing how many people do not comprehend what they read. The US voting rates are based on population so they will be *higher* when converted into rates based on eligible voters. Thus it is questionable if US voting rates are really lower than in Canada, etc., especially if 10%+ of the population is ineligible to vote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.146.2.138 (talk) 20:15, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Significance of turnout

I'm rather surprised that this section is so short and vague. It also mentions nothing of how a low/high turnout can advantage one side or another in politics. For example, in US elections, it's generally known that young voters are a) more likely to vote democrat, and b) less likely to vote. Increasing the overall turnout - and assuming that will increase turnout evenly across all demographic sectors - favours the Democrats. For that reason there has been a lot of criticism of the fact that voting in certain areas is more difficult than others, as it skews the overall result.

Of course, all that is a very good reason for compulsory voting :) But in the meantime, the lack of discussion on this subject is rather odd for a FA. Stevage 11:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

As well, young generations are being targeted to vote for this 2008 election as democrats. Studies have shown that when a person votes for a party three times in row,they tend to stick to that party again. Democrats are tring to lock in votes from the younger generations and appealing to them as much they can. Yonger generations are being targeted and are making a huge differnce in this elecion. This also shows that the younger generations are ready for a change. This elction is very popular becuase of the fact that we have never had a women or a black man president. Younger generations want to make history, and by doing so they vote for one of these canditates. The problem is with this is they are basing their vote on apperance rather then views. [3] --Snowb7 (talk) 15:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Turnout in parliamentary systems

I put a citation tag on "low voter turnout often helps smaller parties because it decreases the minimum threshold required to get seats". This seems slightly muddled - the threshold is a percentage, and if the reduction in turnout was distributed in proportion to the various parties previous support, the actual seat distributions wouldn't change. The implicit assumption seems to be that the supporters of small parties have a greater commitment to voting and will be less affected by the decreasing turnout, increasing their proportion of the total vote. That is likely true in many real-world situations, but isn't directly due to the reduced threshold, and the article wording should probably be changed to make this clear. - David Oberst 00:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

effect of proportional and majority system on turnout

using the terms “however” and “invariably” makes it sound as if a "multiparty system" or a "coalition government" was something bad! countries like germany, holland, austria, israel and several others fared quite well with a number of such governments in the past 40 years. the argument, that decisions in such governments are harder to find can very well be seen in favour rather than against the system because it could be considered more democratic than a one party government based on only 30 or 40% of the popular vote. and this certainly had no negative effect on voter turnout in these countries, as it has been comparatively high over the years in these countries. after all, coalition governments are also possible in countries with the plurality system, such as canada. thus, the reasoning in this chapter does not make sense and should be removed.

i had added this sentence into the article: ”in proportional representation a voter can be sure that he will be represented in parliament even if it's on the opposition bench; in the plurality system such votes are lost.” it was removed arguing, that “most proportional systems have some cut off for excluding minor parties.” this only somewhat alters what i wrote, as this only applies to parties getting less than a certain percentage, e. g. in germany 5%. but in germany e. g. such a party can still make it into parliament, if it gets a majority in one constituency. it can be disputed how democratic a 5%-fence is, but apart from parties who get less than 5% of the popular vote, my statement remains true for all the other ones. The main difference between the proportional and the majority systems is, that in the former, all votes count (apart from the ones not passing the fence) and in the latter, all votes for “losing” parties are simply lost. voters of these parties are not represented in parliament. In the former, the size of the opposition reflects the number of votes it got, in the latter the size of the opposition depends on the number of constituencies in which it won.

so voter turnout in plurality systems very well can be low because people see no chance, that their vote matters. This certainly is not the case in proportional systems. in fact, this might very well be a reason for higher voter turnout.

germany also has a dual system in federal elections and again it cannot be argued that its “complexity” suppressed turnout as the numbers speak for themselves. actually, voters tend to use this system voting for two different parties when it suits their purpose.Sundar1 19:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Rational choice theories

I deleted a slightly inaccurate sentence. Referring to the rational choice theories about low turnout: "This is in part a "free rider problem", because in theory an individual voter can rely on the rest of the population to make a rational decision, without having to go to the effort of becoming informed, making a decision, and going out to vote." That's not quite correct: even if any given individual could not rely on the rest of the population to make a rational decision, (s)he still ought not to turn out under RC assumptions: their probability of affecting even a totally irrational decision will still be vanishingly low.

There is one sense in which turnout is a collective action problem, however. Anthony Downs argued in An Economic Theory of Democracy that sufficiently low turnout will threaten the stability of the system (although he solved it by ad hoc fiat that's usually rejected by contemporary political scientists). The stability of the system is a public good to which people can contribute directly by voting, but that individuals can be expected to free-ride on for the usual reasons. --Paultopia 05:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Canadian election results broadcasting ban

It is not true that the Canadian ban of broadcasting results was struck down. The supreme court of Canada upheld the ban in a decision on March 15, 2007. [4] --Frankie GB 13:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

socioeconomics factors section needs major re-write

The sentence below should be deleted.

"In developing countries, the poor (and uneducated), who dominate the demographics, are more likely to vote than the middle class, who are disenfranchised in majoritarian voting system.

The first part of the sentence is a unsubstantiated assertion. It needs citations or should be simply deleted. The last part of the sentence (starting with 'who are') is an argument drawn from the initial assertion and is nonsensical. The minority in any single election do lose in a majoritarian system. That's a tautology: it is NOT the same as being disenfranchised. {[User:Pmurnion|Pmurnion]] 08:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree and have removed that section. It was unreferenced, and I agree with your criticisms. - SimonP 13:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

More data should be cited for the rich-poor electoral divide: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1483802,00.html ("That the rich vote more than the poor is a common-place of political science. The difference is notoriously pronounced in the US, but it is pretty universal - in most European countries the working class turnout trails upper class turnout by about 10%. Yet that hardly makes it less significant. According to Mori, 70% of voters from the top social classes (AB) voted last week, but only 54% of from the bottom (DE) did. Moreover, the gap appears to be growing, increasing from 13% in 1997 to 15% in 2001 and 16% last week. The political voice of the well off remains strong, as that of the poor gets weaker.") Darth Sidious 00:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Genetic Factors

This allegation in the article is rather dubious. Re preferences following those of parents, hasn't anyone considered that environmental/ nurture could impact on voting preferences??? Dogru144 (talk) 00:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I reinserted the section on genetic factors because there are now two articles in press showing that genes matter for voter turnout. One article forthcoming in the American Political Science Review uses twin studies both in Los Angeles and a nationally-representative sample (the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health) to show that the decision to vote has high heritability. This does not mean that the environment doesn't matter -- it just means that genes are part of the story, too. The other article forthcoming in Journal of Politics identifies two specific genes that are associated with voter turnout. One of these genes interacts with the environment to influence voting. Thus, neither one of these articles is saying socioeconomic factors are unimportant -- they are just saying that both genes and environment are important.

DID you not notice that both of those articles are written by the same authors using the same data? There are not 2 studies on this topic-- only one. And it is a correlational study, nothing more. One could easily find the same results comparing two other populations." HK


The genetics section was previously removed by Nlu because "these studies deal with the likelihood that an individual would vote, not with *voter turnout* (as defined in this article, the percentage of the *population*)." However, to be consistent, we would also need to remove the "Reasons for Voting" section and also the first two paragraphs of the "Socioeconomic Factors" section, since they both deal with individual decisions to vote. But I don't think we should do that -- scholars who write about turnout always base their arguments about differences in the proportion of voters in individual decisions to vote, so it is important that we keep all the material about environmental and genetic factors that influence these decisions. 130.219.235.253 (talk) 04:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC) I havent read these two new articles, but as a geneticist, I find it very difficult to put any faith in one or two articles, especially those which have not stood the test of time. _BDP_

Turnout table

I've made compulsory it's own column, as it's information deserving of higher status than a mere footnote. Alas, sort on this column seems to be broken... --Belg4mit (talk) 02:30, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

2008 US Presidential Turnout figure is wrong

I've gone ahead and fixed it, it's the second bullet point in the press release by CSAE/American U. Prof. Gans, cited on the article's page: "The turnout level was 63 percent of eligibles, a 2.4 percentage point increase over 2004 and the highest percentage to turn out since 64.8 percent voted for president in 1960." See Time Magazine Karen Tumulty's view on this, and Gans's shift from a Nov. 6 preliminary estimate, which was also cited on the article page. I'll remove the misleading preliminary estimate in preference of the final turnout report. I also removed the Census weighted survey numbers of the 53,000 households — from which the Census voting survey for 2008 was based — because I felt that was not as accurate as certified vote totals from the various states used in the previously mentioned report (presumably, certified results from the states have better than a 90% confidence interval). A respondent rejection rate of at least 10 percent didn't help, either. --Happysomeone (talk) 22:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Definition of Turnout?

This page says: "Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election". However, the UK Electoral Commission's leaflet on turnout claims "Turnout is the number of people casting a vote as a percentage of registered electors." The turnout in, for example, the United Kingdom general election, 2005 article is as a percent of registered, not eligible voters.

These two definitions are incompatible - does this vary from country to country?

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