Turnout Ain't What It Used to Be
In more ways than one
Supposedly Rutabaga got 81 million votes and supposedly turnout for the 2020 presidential election was 66%—-a high for the last 100 years. Of course, both of these numbers are seriously in doubt, as the level of fraud was astronomical.
In 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in the first national election since the onset of the Great Depression, turnout was only 52%. One would think that such dire circumstances would produce a reaction larger than that. Four years later, the turnout increased to 56% as FDR generously applied federal largess to “encourage” turnout in many states. The 1960 election saw 62% turnout of “Voting Age Population,” or the same as 2020. The difference came in the “Voting Eligible Population”—-that’s where the 66% (or, according to another source, 69%) showed up. Again, I think any sensible person has to dismiss such 2020 statistics as entirely bogus. We don’t know who, or how many, really voted.
In the 1800s, of course, before property requirements to vote were removed, the percentages were much higher. Routinely elections saw 70% of the eligible electorate vote and in 1819, record all-time highs were achieved with some 90% of eligible voters casting ballots in some states.
But did you know . . . voting for president often produced nowhere near the same enthusiasm as voting for governor??
In1824, in Massachusetts (where John Quincy Adams was one of the candidates), only 37,000 voted—-but the year before 66,000 had voted for governor! Ohio showed the same trend: 59,000 voted in the presidential race, but 76,000 voted for governor. In Virginia, of a voter-eligible population of 625,000, only 15,000 voted and in Pennsylvania, with a population of over one million, a mere 15,000 voters cast ballots.
In those days, the local and state governments were much more important to average citizens. The feds played a relatively minor role in people’s lives.
Oh to return to such blissful times!
Larry Schweikart
Rock drummer, Film maker, NYTimes #1 bestselling author, Political pundit
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