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United States Elections Project |
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Voter Turnout Frequently Asked Questions
How many people voted in a given election? Traditionally, the "Vote for Highest Office" serves as the number of people who voted in a given election. In presidential election years, this is simply the presidential vote. In a non-presidential election year this is the largest vote total for a statewide office such as governor or US Senator. When no statewide office is on the ballot, the sum of the congressional races is used instead. In 2006, I changed this methodology slightly to use the sum of the congressional races if they exceeded a statewide office, as occurred with Indiana's uncompetitive US Senate race. However, some people do not cast a vote, even for president. While some failures to record votes are true errors, such as the infamous hanging chads of the 2000 Florida election, it is important to realize that some people intentionally abstain. Take Nevada, for example. 3,688 persons voted for "None of These Candidates" in the 2004 presidential election (Nevada is the only state that allows this option). Some, but not all, states report the total number of ballots cast in addition to the election returns. I report the total turnout numbers for these states and provide a national estimate using the correspondence between the vote for highest office and total turnout for the states that provide both numbers. These turnout statistics are reported as VEP turnout rate and VEP total turnout rate, respectively. What is the voting-age population or VAP? The voting-age population is defined by the Bureau of the Census as everyone residing in the United States, age 18 and older. Before 1971, the voting-age population was age 21 and older. What is the voting-eligible population or VEP? The voting-eligible population is the population that is eligible to vote. Counted among the voting-age population are persons who are ineligible to vote, such as non-citizens, felons (depending on state law), and mentally incapacitated persons. Not counted are persons in the military or civilians living overseas. Why should I care if turnout rates are calculated as a percentage of VAP or VEP? The most valid turnout rates over time and across states are calculated using VEP. Declining turnout rates, post-1971, are entirely explained by the increase in the ineligible population. In 1972, the non-citizen population of the United States was less than 2 percent of VAP and in 2004 it was nearly 8.5 percent of VAP. The percent of non-felons among the VAP have increased to about 1 percent of the VAP since the mid-1980s. State turnout rates are not comparable using VAP since the ineligible population is not uniformly distributed across the United States. For example, more than 20 percent of California's voting-age population is ineligible to vote because they are not citizens. How about calculating turnout rates for registered voters? Many states do this, but while it is a useful number from an administrative standpoint, it is practically useless from a policy standpoint. Voter registration rolls contain 'deadwood' - people who are registered at an address but no longer reside there, for whatever reason. States vary on how well they maintain their registration rolls and have changed their purging procedures over time. Thus, comparing state turnout rates based on voter registration is not informative. See http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/mcdonald/20041005.htm for more information. OK, I'm sold...How do you construct VEP? The voting-eligible population is constructed by adjusting the voting-age population for non-citizens and ineligible felons, depending on state law. National estimates are further adjusted for overseas eligible voters, but no state level adjustments are made since their is no reliable method of apportioning overseas voters to states. There are other adjustments that I am unable to made due to lack of available data, such as the number of permanently disfranchised felons, depending on state law, the number of persons who have been judged mentally incompetent by state law, and the number of persons who have moved after the close of voter registration, depending on state law. Where can I get your voter turnout data? Tables for recent elections appear on this website. A spreadsheet of national and state data, 1980-2006 are available in an Excel spreadsheet: Turnout 1980-2006.xls Where do you get your estimate of the Voting-Age Population? The voting-age population estimates are generated from the July 1 Census Bureau population estimates by age-sex-race. Estimates for an election month are constructed by linearly interpolating the change between the most approximate pair of estimates. For example, to estimate the Nov 2004 VAP population, add to the July 1, 2004 estimate the following: the July 1, 2004 estimate minus the July 1, 2003 estimate, divide by 12, and then multiply by 4. When forecasting, I adjust the most recent estimate in a similar manner. It should be emphasized that although these estimates are based on official Census Bureau reports, listed below, but they are not directly produced by the Census Bureau and should not be cited as a Census Bureau product.
Why is the Current Population Survey VAP estimate lower than your estimate? The Current Population Survey is a Census Bureau survey of the civilian non-institutional population of the United States. The VAP estimates are of the resident population of the United States, and includes military and other persons living in group quarters that are not in the Current Population Survey sample frame. What happens to the VAP after the next census? Current VAP population estimates are based on estimates of population change closely followed by the population estimates division at the Census Bureau. When a new census is conducted at the end of the decade, these population estimates are inevitably out of line with the actual census. The Census Bureau adjusts the previous decade's population estimates to conform with the new information revealed by the census. This is called the "intercensal adjustment." Thus, we will not have a definitive estimate of the turnout rate in the 2004 election until the intercensal adjustment is released sometime after 2010. In the meantime, the population estimates serve as the best estimate of the voting-age population of the United States. Where do you get your estimate of the non-citizen population? For 2000 and years prior, I linearly interpolate the non-citizen population among the VAP drawn from the census. Following 2000, I use the Current Population Survey estimate of the non-citizen population.
I construct a the percentage of non-citizens among the VAP by dividing the total estimated number of CPS non-citizens by the best VAP estimate. The percentages in the tables provided are thus somewhat misleading and seemingly inconsistent with the CPS, which simply reports the percentage of the CPS sample frame (this is an unfortunate legacy from reporting of the non-citizen numbers prior to 2000). I take this approach so because the CPS's sample frame is the non-institutional civilian population of the United States whereas the voting-age population estimate is for the resident population of the United States. Non-citizens can be found in nursing home, university dorms, and military quarters, but I suspect that the proportion of non-citizens is less than the non-institutional population. Thus, I am offering a conservative estimate of the non-citizen population with this method. Furthermore, I subtract prisoners through a different method, so not counting prisoners avoids double counting the small percentage of non-citizen prisoners. How do you estimate the number of ineligible felons? The number of ineligible felons depends on state law. Some state permanently disfranchise felons and some let even prisoners vote. Statistics drawn from various Department of Justice reports which detail the prison, probation, and parole population of the United States are matched with these state laws to estimate the number of ineligible felons. The Department of Justice Bureau, Office of Justice Statistics releases numbers from 1/1 through 12/31 for a given year. I use the most approximate 1/1 values, where available, since these account for revised 12/31 data from the previous year. I assume all Prisoners and Parolees are felons, and half of Probationers are felons (this estimate is drawn from DOJ reports). A blank indicates the category of felons is allowed to vote in that state. For the United States totals, I include persons in the Federal corrections system.
Do you correct for the number of permanently disfranchised felons? No, I do not estimate the number of "permanently" disfranchised felons in the 14 states that have some form of post-correctional voting restriction, since statistics on recidivism, deaths, and migration of felons are largely unknown. How do you estimate the overseas voting-eligible population?The overseas eligible population is drawn from various sources: Consular Services estimates of civil population abroad, DoD military deployment records, and State Department foreign service employees. Unfortunately, Consular Services no longer published estimates of the private citizen overseas population. The Census Bureau provided a thorough overview of the problems associated with estimating overseas VAP (LINK) and decided that conducting a survey of overseas citizens in impossible at this time.
Why don't you make a state level adjustment for the overseas population? To my knowledge, there is no method to apportion overseas VEP to the states. However, I am investigating methods to do so based on surveys of overseas citizens and tax returns. Preliminary evidence suggests that apportioning overseas voters roughly equal to the population of the states provides a reasonable estimate of the overseas citizens who claim a state as their residence. What is left out of the voting-eligible population?
Primary research published by by Dr. Michael P. McDonald at George Mason University (email:mmcdon@gmu.edu office phone: 703-993-4191) appears in the following journals:
Secondary research on this topic appears in the following journals:
For more information on Census Bureau data, contact: Jennifer Day or Gregory Spencer What are some other useful data sources on voting?
Why didn't someone think of this before? Walter Dean Burnham made adjustments for the non-citizen population until 1986. Unfortunately, his last publication in the mid-1980s missed the up-tick in the non-citizen and ineligible felon populations, and thus missed explaining the often-discussed decline in contemporary turnout rates. I am certain that if he had continued with his calculations after the 1990 census, he would have likely realized the ineligible population was growing at such a high rate it was artificially depressing the VAP turnout rate. Why doesn't the government produce these numbers? That would save me a lot of time! Some states do produce estimates of their eligible voters, but often do not explain how they arrived at those results. So do I! The best estimate that can be constructed at the county level is citizen-voting age population. Data available at National Historical Geographic Information System may be extremely helpful in constructing these data, and many other variables of interest.
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Dr.
Michael McDonald Department of Public and International Affairs George Mason University 4400 University Drive - 3F4 Fairfax, VA 22030-4444 Office: 703-993-4191 |