Highest Voter Turnout Since 1908 Predicted in U.S.

Shelley Sperry
for National Geographic News

November 3, 2008

Tomorrow an "I Voted" sticker will be the United States' most ubiquitous fashion accessory. Voter turnout in the 2008 election is expected to be the highest in at least a century, in part due to technological twists on old-fashioned campaigning techniques. Furthermore, the concept of the U.S. as a nation of disengaged non-voters is a myth, experts say.

For years, pundits saw a picture of increasing voter apathy in the United States, as turnout appeared to plummet from the 1970s to 1990s.

But that picture was misleading, says political scientist Michael McDonald of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

"In the 1950s and 1960s, we had a much smaller noncitizen population than today, and voter turnout was always measured as the percentage of the whole voting age population that went to the polls," McDonald said.

But immigration boomed in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, creating a large pool of citizens who were of voting age, but not eligible to vote. Most estimates of turnout during those decades still put the noncitizen population into the mix, creating a false sense that turnout was spiraling downward.

Today number crunchers like McDonald try to get at turnout of eligible voters only—eliminating not only noncitizens, but also prisoners and felons who are ineligible to vote. Once those calculations are included, turnout of eligible U.S. voters looks fairly steady since the 1970s. Until this year, that is.

More Voter-to-Voter Campaigning

The McCain-Obama election "will have the highest turnout since 1908," which saw 66 percent of eligible voters at the polls, McDonald predicted.

He pointed to the rediscovery of an old-school campaign strategy as one major reason for this year's increased participation.

Campaigns have returned to personal, voter-to-voter contact, which dominated in the 19th century, when voter turnout was the highest in U.S. history—often topping 75 percent of eligible voters.

Today's voter-to-voter contact has technological twists never imagined by Gilded Age campaign operatives—including text messaging, social networking Web sites, homemade YouTube videos, and email recruiting and fundraising.

In 12 states nonpartisan election officials have joined the revolution by reaching out to young voters via Facebook and Twitter, a network that allows users to post very brief updates of their activities in real time.

Making It Easier

Polling sites all over the country have been flooded with early voters and are preparing for a deluge on election day. In Alabama, for example, where the number of registered voters exceeded three million for the first time in history, the secretary of state predicted that the number of actual votes cast will also break records.

To offset large election-day crowds and encourage citizen participation, states have expanded early and absentee voting. This year 31 states are letting voters vote early without stating a reason they cannot participate on election day, and 5 states allow voting by phone.

Arizona lets its citizens who are overseas in the military scan and upload ballots via a secure Internet connection. All these innovations make voting easier and should contribute to an upswing in numbers.

Plus, there's simply a lot riding on this election. According to Rafael López-Pintor of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, when you see very high participation rates, there is a major factor operating: "voter interest, usually born of great despair or high hopes."

To put it another way, Michael McDonald said, "Sometimes people like to say low voter turnout is good, because it shows people aren't angry." In 2008, apathy is hard to come by.

One unanticipated result of heightened interest: In some jurisdictions "I Voted" stickers are not keeping up with the demand.

Election officials in El Paso County, Texas, report that they ran out of stickers a few days before November 4 and had to revert to an older design. The race is on to print more of the coveted stickers and get them to the polls and onto voters on election day.