Off-Year Elections

Midterm Voter Turnout

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Courtesy of FairVote, here are the voter turnout percentages from Presidential and non-Presidential elections beginning in 1948.  This year, 2014, is a midterm election or an election that does not include a Presidential race.  As you can see, elections in non-Presidential years have never experienced voter turnout over 50%.  The best year was 1966 at 49%.  Why do you believe that voter turnout in non-Presidential elections is so low?  What do you think the national turnout will be this year?

Lowering the Voting Age

With the recent vote regarding Scottish Independence, it came to my attention that the minimum voting age for that referendum was 16 years old.  About 100,000 16 year olds voted in that election.  It is unknown how many, of those who participated, voted for or against independence.  It is also unknown if Scotland will maintain the 16 year old threshold for future elections.  At this moment, this experiment is a one-shot deal.

In the United States, the minimum voting age is 18 years old.  The 26th Amendment, which passed in 1971, made this happen.  It was a time of social protests and unrest on many college campuses and cities.  Young people, protesting the Vietnam War, were angry with the fact that they could not vote, but yet they could still be drafted into the nation’s military.  Thus, lowering the voting age had a social and political motive to it.

What would it take for the United States to lower the voting age to 16?  Do you foresee this ever happening?

Voting in the Midterm

The Politics of Celebrity

Your Primary Choice

Methods of Voting Madness

Below is a video explaining how New Yorker voters use the mechanical lever voting machines on Election Day.  New York was the last state to use these machines.  The city of New York, however, is going back to the mechanical lever voting machine for their upcoming Mayoral elections.

Even though mechanical lever voting machines are no longer in use, you will see from this Procon.org study, however, that not all state voting systems are the same.  Those systems include Electronic Voting Machines (DRE), hand-counted paper ballots, paper ballots with optical scan, and punch cards.

Do you believe that all states should have one method to follow?  Should the selection of voting method be made by the states or by the federal government?Which voting system do you prefer?

Midterm Elections

Do you plan on voting in the 2014 elections?

Local and State Elections

Electoral College Results Since 1964

There are 538 available Electoral College votes in this year’s Presidential election.  That total has remained the same since 1964.  Below are the Electoral vote totals for each Presidential election since 1964.

1964:  Lyndon Johnson (D) 486, Barry Goldwater (R) 52

1968:  Richard Nixon (R) 301, Hubert Humphrey (D) 197, George Wallace (I) 40

1972:  Nixon (R) 520, George McGovern (D) 17, John Hospers (L) 1

1976:  Jimmy Carter (D) 297, Gerald Ford (R) 240

1980:  Ronald Reagan (R) 489, Carter (D) 49

1984:  Reagan (R) 525, Walter Mondale (D) 13

1988:  George H.W. Bush (R) 429, Michael Dukakis (D) 112

1992:  Bill Clinton (D) 370, Bush (R) 168

1996:  Clinton (D) 387, Bob Dole (R) 151

2000:  George W. Bush (R) 271, Al Gore (D) 266

2004:  Bush (R) 286, John Kerry (D) 251

2008:  Barack Obama (D) 365, John McCain (R) 173

What do you think this year’s Electoral vote total will be for the 2012 Presidential Election?