Voting math

[tamarinne]

A few days ago, Rick and I were pondering crowded polling places, early voting, and the effect of the latter on the former.  As we are wont to do, we were speculating wildly in the absence of any data.  Today at lunch, I decided to do some research. 

Here are the voter turnout figures for the state of Illinois going back to 1980:

            Registered                               Percentage

Year     Voters             Total Vote        Turnout

 

2004     7,499,488          5,350,493          71%

2000     7,129,026          4,932,192          69%

1996     6,663,301          4,418,270          66%

1992     6,600,358          5,164,357          78%

1988     6,356,940          4,697,192          74%

1984     6,470,438          4,969,330          77%

1980     6,230,332          4,868,890          78%

This year, a record 7.7 million people are registered to vote in Illinois (out of a total population of around 12.8 million).  Of those, approximately 877,000, over 10%, have voted early.  (This is the first presidential election that Illinois has offered open early voting.)  Now, most of the speculation I've seen about 'record turnout' in Illinois this year has centered around an 80% number.  That would be 6.16 million.  Less the numbers that have already voted, we're looking at 5.28 million heading to the polls today, which is actually fewer voters than participated in the 2004 elections. 

A couple of caveats - I haven't considered absentee ballots, since I couldn't find good numbers for this year.  This also does not rule out regional variation - a higher percentage of voters might be from Chicago this year than in 2004, for example.  And voter participation could be even higher - 85% or 90% would mean an increase of about 385,000 voters for each 5 percentage points.  Still - that's, at most, a 13% increase in the number of people at the average polling place.  It's more, to be sure, but it's not unmanageable. 

Now, the newspapers are full today of hysterical accounts of people standing in line for anywhere up to an hour to vote, and loudly proclaiming how this reflects the higher voter turnout we're going to be having this year.  Could be.  Or it could be they said the same thing four years ago...  

Comments

[samazon13.livejournal.com]

First of all, your math-geekery makes my heart glad. :)

Second, I voted this morning just after 9am, and I had no line.

-Samazon