Consider what happened in 2012. There were 241 million people of voting age, but only 129.1 million actually cast votes for president — a turnout rate of just 53.6 percent. There’s reason to think turnout could be slightly higher in 2016, given the surge of registrations and intense feelings around Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. But America’s turnout rate has been remarkably stable for the past 40 years, and the betting markets don’t seem to think this year will be much different. [...]
So what gives? Why don’t more Americans vote? I put this question to two political scientists who study voter turnout: Donald Green of Columbia University and David Nickerson of Temple University. They pointed to a couple of broad factors at work: [...]
Plus, not all states are actually trying to make it easier to vote. In recent years, states like North Carolina have been going in the other direction and trying to suppress turnout. The ACLU has an interactive graph here showing all the new voter-suppression laws on the books since 2012, from Arizona to Wisconsin to Georgia.
There may be a few other offbeat ideas to try. In one 2006 study, Green and his colleagues found suggestive evidence that turning elections into giant festivals of a sort can boost turnout. Note that in 19th-century America, when turnout was much higher, elections had much more of a festive, whiskey-soaked atmosphere. The idea, presumably, is that throwing a giant party can help cement cultural norms around voting. It’s unclear if this would work on a large scale, but it might be worth exploring.
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