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And yet more on voting
Dec. 1st, 2008 03:11 pmDuring the election, everyone seemed to be talking about the large numbers of people who voted in the Nov 2008 election. Most people voting ever. So impressive. ...That was sarcasm on my part. Bear with me.
I do not believe people who say things and do not show me the numbers. So, I went searching for the numbers myself.
Some parts were easy to find. Wiki had the number of people who voted in presidential elections going back as far as I cared to go. I got bored around 1948.
Other parts were a bit challenging. Traditionally, percentage of people who voted is reported. So, as I am always asking my students, percentage of what? I looked it up.
(1) Some percentages are of the registered voters. Since methods to register vary from state to state, I think that is BS -- a good way to lie and make the numbers look better than they are.
(2) I liked better the ones that use the number of 18 and over people in the US. Generally they cannot take out the 18+ people who cannot vote (non citizens, convicted felons), but this is a pretty cool number. The problem is, I could not find solid numbers for these going back 1948. Bleh. So this could not work for me.
(3) I could and did find census totals going back. This is less popular than the previous two methods... I'm not sure why. Because we have baby booms? I suspect it is less popular simply because the percentages are understandably smaller. I figure as long as I am consistent, then which denominator I use in my percentage doesn't matter. What matters is the relative size of the percentage numbers, once calculated.
Which brings us to my graph. I am so late getting this out because CNN took this long to settle on the numbers for the 2008 election. Hard to make a graph when the numbers keep changing.
And my point? From all of those people talking about the amazing number of people who voted? Um... Not really. Not even as high as the 2004 election.
The blue dotted line is the tot sum people who voted in my data / total sum of census numbers in my data. You can think of it as an average (which, mathematically, it is not) for this data.
Sources:
CNN Election center -- This year's numbers.
Wiki on Voter Turnout -- past year's numbers
US Census Bureau -- census numbers
Arguments:
I do not believe people who say things and do not show me the numbers. So, I went searching for the numbers myself.
Some parts were easy to find. Wiki had the number of people who voted in presidential elections going back as far as I cared to go. I got bored around 1948.
Other parts were a bit challenging. Traditionally, percentage of people who voted is reported. So, as I am always asking my students, percentage of what? I looked it up.
(1) Some percentages are of the registered voters. Since methods to register vary from state to state, I think that is BS -- a good way to lie and make the numbers look better than they are.
(2) I liked better the ones that use the number of 18 and over people in the US. Generally they cannot take out the 18+ people who cannot vote (non citizens, convicted felons), but this is a pretty cool number. The problem is, I could not find solid numbers for these going back 1948. Bleh. So this could not work for me.
(3) I could and did find census totals going back. This is less popular than the previous two methods... I'm not sure why. Because we have baby booms? I suspect it is less popular simply because the percentages are understandably smaller. I figure as long as I am consistent, then which denominator I use in my percentage doesn't matter. What matters is the relative size of the percentage numbers, once calculated.
Which brings us to my graph. I am so late getting this out because CNN took this long to settle on the numbers for the 2008 election. Hard to make a graph when the numbers keep changing.
And my point? From all of those people talking about the amazing number of people who voted? Um... Not really. Not even as high as the 2004 election.
The blue dotted line is the tot sum people who voted in my data / total sum of census numbers in my data. You can think of it as an average (which, mathematically, it is not) for this data.
Sources:
CNN Election center -- This year's numbers.
Wiki on Voter Turnout -- past year's numbers
US Census Bureau -- census numbers
Arguments:
- I would be happy to share my raw numbers with you. Just ask.
- Did more total number people vote in this presidential election than any other, 1948-present? Yes. 4 million more than in 2004. But at the same time, the total population went up by 13 million in those 4 years. You can see for yourself what happened to the percentage. Unimpressive. Those lines at the polls? Improper planning by cities and counties, not an amazing turnout.
- At least one Wiki article on voter turnout talked about how our turnout is decreasing. They showed a graph which I found bewildering, even if it was current when drawn. To my eye, there was no indication of a downward slope and that is certainly not true now. Our turnout may be poor relative to other countries, but at least we seem to be consistent.
