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After a long campaign, it's less than two weeks before millions of Americans cast their votes. But turnout could be as low as 50%. Why do so few people vote?

With two of the most unpopular presidential candidates in history, some pundits are concerned there could be a record low in voter numbers.

Turnout has been on a historic downward trend in recent years - with the exception of President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for the Election Innovation and Research.

Participation has hovered between 48% and 57% in US presidential elections since 1980. That contrasts with France, where turnout regularly tops 80%.

Among OECD countries, the US ranked 31 of 34 for percentage of voting-age population.

Americans face a number of hurdles beginning with registration. The US is one of the only countries that requires voters to register separately, rather than automatically signing them up, a step many Americans never take.

"The burden has always been on the voter to find out how to register and get themselves registered," Mr Becker said.

But some US states have taken efforts to make this process easier by implementing "same-day registration" or allowing people to register to vote while getting a driver's licence.

Other states have passed more stringent voter ID laws, which some critics say make it more difficult for minorities to cast a ballot.

More recently, Pew Charitable Trusts worked with several states to form the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), to help update voter registration rolls.

Why do so many French people vote?

Where Clinton and Trump stand on key issues

All you need to know about US election

Who's ahead in the polls?

Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia now work with ERIC, which Mr Becker helped create, and somewhere between 10 and 20 million people will have been contacted to register by this fall.

And though Democratic political data firm TargetSmart found that 200 million Americans are now registered to vote for the first time in US history, that may not translate to turnout.

Some critics also point to holding elections on Tuesdays, when much of America is at work, as part of the challenge.

To resolve scheduling conflicts, some states offer absentee ballots, or voting by mail, as well as early voting, but in places like Australia, where voting is mandatory, the election is held on a Saturday.

The historical lack of enthusiasm for voting in the US has been heightened in this year's bitter presidential election - which has seen gruelling months of mudslinging and a rise in hateful invective - leaving some voters no other option than to tune it out.

Courtney Otto, a 29-year-old resident who lives in Romeoville, Illinois, said she plans to abstain from voting on 8 November for that very reason.

"I'm not informed. I feel like both candidates are more so telling me what the other candidate has done wrong," she told the BBC.

"I don't want to know what the other person's not going to do. I want to know what you are going to do."

She is not alone. Brian Meyer, a 32-year-old resident in southeast Wisconsin, has also decided to not to vote in the presidential election for the first time since he was 18.

Mr Meyer, a former Bernie Sanders supporter who has been unable to throw his support behind either candidate, said his decision not to vote was his form of protest.

"This is my way to protest the system for throwing American people overboard," he said.

But even this year's primaries only saw about 30% of eligible voters at the polls, which means seven out of 10 people did not show up, Mr Becker noted.

"If you don't like the candidates who came out of the primary process, I think it only highlights the importance in that primary process and making sure your voice is heard," he said.

Compare US turnout rates with Australia, where mandatory voting has increased average turnout to 91% from 67%. Failing to vote in Australia is punishable with a fine of A$20.

Compulsory systems consistently rank among the world's highest voter participation.

President Barack Obama once said of compulsory voting: "If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country."

Simon Jackman, a professor and chief executive of the United States Centre at the University of Sydney, said the process has even become part of the Australian identity.

"It's become so engrained in the political consciousness now," he said. "If it's going to be compulsory, you have to make it easy and in the course of making it easy I think it's helped institutionalise this norm of high voter turnout in Australia.

Doug Morris, a 35-year-old American living in Sydney, Australia, finds the concept a little strange for a democratic society, but said it serves as a good reminder about US voting.

"I honestly feel more of a sense of duty about voting being overseas than I would being in Chicago," he said, referring to his hometown.

"Voting isn't necessarily a duty: I think it's a right. But I think if you take up that right, it's your duty to understand who you're voting for and why. And, if you choose not to vote, I think it's your duty to explain why you haven't."

But by requiring people to vote, Mr Jackman contended, it validates the outcome.

"I think a lot of Australians who point to Americans who may be upset with the outcome of their elections say, 'well, if you don't vote then you don't really have a legitimate gripe about it'".

"They tend to make it an event," Mr Morris said, recalling his first experience with Australian voting 10 years ago.

Voters often head to the pub after casting their ballot while charities set up cookouts outside the polls.

"It was a real diversion from what I was used to back in the States and there was a hopeful enthusiasm about it," he said.

But in the US, the decision is on the voter - a principle that underscores American democracy but could undermine the outcome in November.

"The onus is on the citizen in the United States," Mr Jackman said. "For younger people who aren't paying a lot of attention to politics, that's a deal breaker."

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After a long campaign, it's less than two weeks before millions of Americans cast their votes. But turnout could be as low as 50%. Why do so few people vote? With two of the most unpopular presidential candidates in history, some pundits are concerned there could be a record low in voter numbers.

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Just in the past few months, elections in the U.S. have been decided by hundreds of votes.

The 2016 presidential election tilted to Donald Trump with fewer than 80,000 votes across three states, with a dramatic impact on the country. Yet, only about 6 in 10 eligible voters cast ballots in 2016.

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Among the other 4 in 10 who did not vote was Megan Davis. The 31-year-old massage therapist in Rhode Island never votes, and she's proud of her record.

"I feel like my voice doesn't matter," she said on a recent evening at a park in East Providence, R.I. "People who suck still are in office, so it doesn't make a difference."

Davis might sound contrarian, but she's not. Although these days more Americans say they're enthusiastic about voting in a midterm election than at any point in the last two decades, come Election Day, nonvoters like Davis will still probably be the norm. For every 10 adults eligible to vote, only about four cast a ballot in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections.

You have to go back to the turn of the 20th century to find a midterm election when a solid majority of people voted (of course, back then, the right to vote was far more limited, so the eligible voting pool was smaller, more male and more white).

Every election cycle there's a lot of attention on who voted and why. But there's another important question: W ho is not voting - and what impact does that have?

The wealthy tend to vote more frequently. Nonvoters are more likely to be poor, young, Hispanic or Asian-American. Some research also indicates they're more likely to align with the Democratic Party.

It's debatable whether election results would be different if the entire population voted, but voting determines more than which candidate wins or loses. It ultimately influences which policies elected officials enact and whose interests candidates ignore and acknowledge.

"The one consistent finding from 1972 up through 2008 and in subsequent elections are that voters and nonvoters have different preferences on economic policies," said Jan Leighley, co-author with Jonathan Nagler of the book Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality, and Turnout in the United States.

Her research found that nonvoters are more likely, for example, to support a redistribution of wealth, housing bailouts and expanded social safety net programs.

Hundreds of thousands of nonvoters want to vote, but can't.

In 2016, 4 percent of registered voters did not vote because of "registration problems," according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. Many would-be voters face a range of barriers: voter ID laws, registration difficulty or criminal records. An estimated 10 percent of adults in Florida, for example, can't vote because of a felony conviction.

Some people who want to vote but can't have been removed from the voting rolls. Across the country, the rate at which people are being purged from the voting rolls, a process historically intended to keep records updated, has increased substantially compared to a decade ago, according to a report from the Brennan Center published this summer. The analysis found 4 million more people were purged between 2014 and 2016 than in the equivalent period between 2006 and 2008.

Legal obstacles are an important part of the nonvoter story, but there are many millions of Americans who can vote and yet choose not to. Their reasons are vast: Some are apathetic or too busy. Others don't like their choices, they don't think their vote matters, they think the system is corrupt, or they don't think they know enough to vote.

NPR traveled to four states where different factors affect why people aren't voting at high levels - age, income, education level, and habits.

Las Vegas: The young and disengaged

Shelby Mabis, a stocky blonde Marine corps veteran, remembers taking a government class in high school, but said he didn't learn anything about voting.

"From what all I know about voting is you show up to a poll place and you vote, but I don't know what I need to bring. I don't even know what happens during there," said Mabis, 23, outside of his mandatory political science class at a community college in North Las Vegas. And so he's never voted before.

Mabis is not unusual. There's a high density of people in his area who don't vote, as in many places.

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"Whenever young people are surveyed, there is a significant lack of knowledge about how exactly the government works, and, therefore, how their vote actually matters," said Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, the director of CIRCLE, an initiative at Tufts University that studies youth civic and political participation. She recently conducted a survey of working-class youth, and found that nearly 20 percent of young people said they don't think they know enough to be able to vote.

Her research has found that a majority of young people don't think voting is an effective way to change society. They also have major misconceptions about voting. Some think getting a citation for driving under the influence meant they could no longer vote.

But for Mabis, not voting is not just about education - it's about location.

"Right now, being away from home, I don't feel connected to the political system here at all," he said, referring to Nevada. "Since I'm not from here, I really feel like this isn't my home."

Mabis grew up in Missouri, and that's where he registered to vote. But he said it's not easy to stay connected to Missouri politics.

Analysts say this is common - young people are more often transient and so they often feel less invested in local elections.

Youth turnout nationwide for midterms is around 20 percent. For older adults, it's closer to 50 percent. When you look at who votes frequently over many years, the numbers look even starker.

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In over a dozen interviews, NPR heard similar reasons from young nonvoters for why they don't participate in politics: they don't feel their vote matters, they don't care, they're busy, or they don't feel like they know enough to vote.

But in some cases, they're also particularly eager to choose individual candidates instead of a party label. In 2016, many said they felt uninspired by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

So, like Jonas Rand, they didn't vote for president.

"I don't believe it is actually effective to vote as a main method of accomplishing political change," said Rand, a senior who studies anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Rand follows the news closely, he considers himself a political activist, but he's not a fan of the current two-party political system.

"The system itself is stacked against the citizenry," he said.

He thinks Trump is a "fascist," but still he doesn't see how voting for Clinton would have changed anything, pointing out that Nevada's votes in the Electoral College went for Clinton anyhow.

But if young people don't vote, they're less likely to be targeted by political campaigns. And that worries community activist Francisco Morales.

"It's no coincidence that politicians care a lot about Medicare and Social Security. Seniors vote all the time," said Morales, state director for the Center for Community Change Action.

But, he says, issues that millennials care about, such as student debt, are often overlooked "because politicians are not afraid of our voting bloc."

West Virginia: The class divide

McDowell County, W.Va., is the county with the lowest voter turnout in a state that had one of the lowest turnout rates in the country in 2016.

In Welch, W.Va., the county seat, median household income hovers around $25,000 a year. Sixty one percent of registered voters in McDowell County are nonvoters, people who have voted zero or one time in the last eight elections, according to a review of data from L2, a nonpartisan voter file vendor.

Tammy Lester, a 42-year-old fast food worker in McDowell County, W.Va., can't remember the last time she voted.

"We vote these people in and they don't help McDowell County," she said, as she walked along the deserted streets in the rundown downtown with her daughter. "There's nothing ... there's no jobs when our kids graduate, they have to leave."

Beyond a movie theater, a small pharmacy, and a couple of county offices, most of the storefronts are closed. A couple of years ago, the closest Walmart shut down, and now there's hardly anywhere locals can buy fresh produce.

Lester said politicians always ignore her county. "We are last on everything," she said.

"What good does it do, though, when they'll promise you anything and then it's a lie," she asked rhetorically.

Lester, like many nonvoters, never went to college. She stopped going to school in eighth grade. Research has shown the biggest and most persistent difference between who votes and who doesn't is education and economics. Class is a more accurate predictor of voting behavior than race, ethnicity, gender or any other demographic factor, according to Jan Leighley. Leighley writes in her book Who Votes Now? that nearly 80 percent of high-income earners vote, compared to barely 50 percent of low-income Americans.

"I just don't think my vote matters," said Josh Mullins, as he pushed a stroller along the street in McDowell County.

The last time Mullins, a 33-year-old unemployed former restaurant worker, remembers voting was in 2004 for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Nowadays, he sees no point, saying the system overrules what people want.

"Hillary [Clinton] won the popular vote and we still have Trump for president," he said. "To me it says ... it was just the [Electoral College] that put Trump in office." Voters in each state determined the Electoral College outcome.

Another major reason people say they don't vote is the time and effort taken away from other priorities.

"They're working several jobs, they're low-income, they're low-education, they're younger and they decide the costs are too high for them," explained Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida who tracks turnout at the U.S. Elections Project. "They decide they've got a lot of other things going on in their lives."

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El Paso, Texas: Low Latino turnout

At the Bowie Bakery, a popular institution in El Paso's Segundo Barrio, or second ward, Christina Rodriguez examined the glass cases filled with Mexican sweet breads, tres leches cakes, cupcakes, cookies and pastries. She ordered a batch of cookies for her 15-year-old's quinceañera and made her way to the door.

Rodriguez, a 38-year-old single, working mom, is always on the go. It's why, she says, she doesn't vote.

"I don't even know who's running,'" she said, laughing with a bit of embarrassment. "I should look into it, but, honestly, I haven't given it more than a thought."

She doesn't have time, she said, to look up the candidates, research their platforms and head to the polls.

"I'd rather not show up and do an uneducated guess," she said. "I don't want to make a mistake."

Growing up, her parents never voted either. Voting, she said, wasn't part of the culture in this border city where over 80 percent of residents identify as Latino.

"Voting is often taught and it may take a couple generations to become a habit," said Lisa Wise, the elections administrator in El Paso.

Some immigrant families are still unfamiliar with voting. Experts suggest this might also explain why Asian-American voter participation is low, despite high education levels. The adult Asian-American population is largely still foreign-born.

"I do what I do to make my life better," said Rodriguez. "I don't depend on (politicians) to change things for me."

But analysts say low Latino turnout in Texas isn't occurring in a vacuum. Texas has long been home to one of the worst voter turnout rates in the country; 51.6 percent of Texans voted in 2016.

Research has shown that competition energizes the electorate, and Texas is largely not seen as a competitive state, particularly in presidential years. Locals say they have a joke in El Paso that the only time a major presidential candidate passes through the city is when he's driving to New Mexico.

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"Texas has not had the swing state machine that we've seen in other places around the country," said Mindy Romero, director of the California Civic Engagement Project at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. "There aren't those resources, money, and investment coming into the state to get every voter." This is also an issue in California, the state with the largest Latino population.

Broad political apathy seeps into local and statewide elections, too. At the Bowie Bakery in El Paso, most customers didn't know that their native son, Beto O'Rourke, is running in a closely watched Senate race against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. They didn't know that if O'Rourke wins he would be the first Democratic senator elected from Texas in a quarter century.

It also doesn't help engage voters that El Paso has had a history of corrupt elected officials.

Texas is undoubtedly one of the highest nonvoting states in the country, but poor Latino turnout goes far beyond the borders of Texas.

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More than half of eligible Latinos nationally don't vote. In the last presidential election, Latinos represented 12 percent of eligible voters nationwide, but only 9 percent of the overall electorate on Election Day.

Many analysts predicted that Donald Trump's offensive rhetoric about Latinos would mobilize records numbers of Latino voters in 2016, but turnout remained relatively even with 2012.

"You may be upset about somebody like Donald Trump and what you're hearing," said Romero. "But if you don't see how or why ... politicians and the political landscape matters for you ... you don't think you have agency,"

Romero points to two main reasons so many Latinos are nonvoters: the disconnect they feel with the political process and the anemic investment in outreach.

But Romero doesn't blame the Latino community, she and Leighley both point out that candidates rarely try to reach new voters.

"This idyllic notion that campaigns are out there to get everyone to vote is simply not true," said Leighley. "They need one more vote than their opponent, they will go to people based on those voter files that they know have voted before and they focus on them."

It's more expensive and time consuming to chase down infrequent voters.

Methodology
NPR used data from L2, a nonpartisan voter file vendor, to analyze and illustrate what differentiates nonvoters from frequent nonvoters. Because our data set is derived from a voter file, it's limited to registered nonvoters, as opposed to unregistered nonvoters. We defined a "nonvoter" as someone who voted in zero or one of the last eight elections, and a "frequent voter" as someone who voted in six, seven or eight of the last eight elections. Those eight elections includes both primary and general elections, which means the data goes back to approximately 2010 nationwide, varying slightly in some states like those with off-year elections. So, if someone voted one time in the last eight years, perhaps for Barack Obama in 2008 or Donald Trump in 2016, but did not participate in any other elections, they would be characterized as a "nonvoter."

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On The Sidelines Of Democracy: Exploring Why So Many Americans Don't Vote

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In recent midterms, 4 in 10 eligible voters cast ballots. Nonvoters talk of apathy, disgust, barriers and other reasons. But those who don't vote, and their interests, can be ignored by candidates.

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By: Anne M. Cizmar, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science for EKU Online

The United States has one of the lowest voter turnout rates among developed countries. In the 2012 presidential election, only about 55% of the voting age population cast a ballot. Voter turnout is even lower in midterm election years when the president is not up for reelection. Many journalists, pundits, and political science scholars have studied the low voter turnout rate with the goal of determining why voter turnout is so low in America, and what might be done to improve turnout rates.

There are a number of theories to explain why voter turnout is so low in the U.S. One theory argues that voting is "irrational" in the sense that the costs of voting outweigh the potential benefits. In order to vote, people must take time out of their busy weekday schedules to go to the polls. They must also invest their time and energy to learning about the candidates and issues and making a decision. In return, many elections are noncompetitive with the winner seeming fairly certain in advance. As a result, some voters perceive few benefits of voting, but many costs associated with the effort of voting.

The "costs" of voting in the U.S. also include electoral laws that may make it difficult for some people to vote. These laws include Election Day occurring on Tuesday in the middle of the workweek, as well as registration laws in most states that require voters to be registered at least 30 days prior to the election. Furthermore, if voters move they must update their own registration-it is not automatically transferred. Some states require voters to show identification when they arrive at the polls. These laws may negatively impact turnout.

Additionally, many Americans are apathetic about politics. Political science research has shown that most Americans are unknowledgeable about how the government works and the candidates and issues of the day. Many Americans complain that they don't like either party/candidate or don't like politics. This may also help to explain low voter turnout.

Still, voter turnout rates are not equal for all Americans. Some groups more regularly vote than others. For example, older Americans are more likely to vote than those in the 18-29 year old range. People with higher incomes are more likely to turnout to vote, along with those who have more education. People who have high levels of political efficacy (the belief that government is responsive to people like them), and who are more interested in politics are also more likely to vote.

There is some indication that changes in electoral laws may help to improve voter turnout rates. For example, some states have adopted Election Day Registration, which means that voters in that state don't have to register prior to the election to be eligible to vote. Additionally, some states allow early voting in which citizens can vote at their convenience at their local Board of Elections rather than having only one day to vote. Finally, the federal Motor Voter Act requires states to offer voter registration cards to people when they obtain their driver's license. All of these policies may help to increase voter turnout as they reduce the burdens associated with voting.

The potential problem with low voter turnout is that the government may be more responsive to citizens who regularly vote. Elected officials are very motivated by a desire to be reelected, so they have an incentive to follow the preferences of voters. This can lead to bias in the legislation that is passed. Legislation will reflect the will of those who more regularly vote, which means that those with lower incomes, less education, or are younger in age may find that policies do not reflect their preferences

Published on November 01, 2016

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What Causes Low Voter Turnout in the United States?

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By: Anne M. Cizmar, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science for EKU Online The United States has one of the lowest voter turnout rates among developed countries. In the 2012 presidential election, only about 55% of the voting age population cast a ballot.

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Low voter turnout in the United States has confounded politicians, activists and academics seeking to reverse a trend that puts the country behind many of the world's developed nations in participation at the polls.

In August, the Pew Research Center ranked the U.S. 31st out of 35 countries for voter turnout based on the voting age populace, among the mostly democratic nations that are a part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The study showed 53 percent of eligible voters in the U.S. cast ballots in 2012, the last time a presidential election was held, with about 129 million people out of a potential 241 million citizens taking part in the election.

In recent history, participation in the U.S. has peaked during presidential elections, when the last several decades show about 55 to 60 percent of the eligible electorate will vote. But those numbers trail off during non-presidential years and in primary races.

Internationally, Belgium had the highest participatory rate in its most recent election at 87 percent, followed by Turkey at 84 percent and Sweden at 82 percent. The study found that compulsory voting often had an impact on voter turnout, which was the case with three of the top five ranked countries, including Belgium and Turkey.

While mandatory voting is unlikely to happen in the U.S., some states are looking to improve those statistics, even though many concede the reasons for low voter turnout are both varied and elusive.

According to interviews with research institutions, advocacy groups and legislators involved in those efforts, restrictive voting laws in some states discourage the electorate from registering to vote. Additionally, they said gerrymandered districts cut across party lines reducing the number of competitive races and interest, and disgruntled citizens, fed up with the often contentious nature of politics, can choose not participate.

But David Becker, who led Pew's election work before launching the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), an organization whose goal is to increase voter turnout, said none of those potential causes are wholly responsible for the dismal turnout statistics.

"The short answer you'll probably hear is nobody really knows," Becker said. "There has been a lot of money and a lot of efforts to increase turnout. There is no one answer to why, all we can say is here is the effect."

According to the United States Election Project, which tracks voting trends, only 36 percent of registered voters cast ballots during the 2014 election cycle, the lowest turnout in a general election since 1942, when many of the nation's young people were out of the country fighting in World War II. Becker said only three of 10 voters participated in presidential primaries this year.

"A smaller and smaller slice of the electorate are making decisions that are important," he said.

Voter participation also depends on the state where you vote. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis on state participation, fewer Americans vote when their states are less competitive in races between Democrats and Republicans.

Many of the states with the lowest turnout are dominated by the Republican Party in the South, where restrictive laws can hamper participation. But two states known to be solid Democratic Party supporters - Hawaii and New York - also fall in the bottom 20 percent of turnout.

In 2016 alone, at least 14 states installed restrictive voting laws around the country, including limitations on voter registration, photo ID mandates and narrower time periods for early voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

In New York, voters have chosen Democrats in every statewide election since 2002, according to Blair Horner, legislative director with the New York Public Interest Research Group. While the lack of competitive elections are a factor for low turnout, it may also be attributed to other issues like one-sided political districts and a timetable to register that is "among one of the longer ones in the country."

"Voting is a hassle and the elections are run in a very chaotic way," Horner said, especially in New York City. "I don't think the political establishment has incentive to expand the electorate."

Since 2012, New York State Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh has pushed for legislation that could address some of those issues, such as early voting, extended registration deadlines and updated technology at polling places, but so far few of them have received broad support, he said.

"Lines are often too long, poll workers are often confused, administration of polling sites are often challenging," Kavanagh said. "I would say there's no magic bullet. But New York has systematically failed to have an election system to keep up with election practices."

Becker said nationally, these issues can vary by states and even by election cycles.

"There's a variety of reasons why people aren't voting," he said. "The number that drives me the most is 47 million. That's the number of people who voted in 2012 that didn't vote in 2014. For some reason nearly 50 million people didn't show up who had voted before."

While solutions to the voting dilemma remain fluid, the turnout rate in the U.S. may also come down to the age of the country's democracy, Becker said. One Harvard University study found that citizens from advanced democratic nations tend to abstain from voting.

"A lot of these democracies are younger," Becker said, of countries that were ranked. "We've been having elections for almost 250 years. That's a lot different than Germany."

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Why is voter turnout so low in the U.S.?

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Low voter turnout in the United States has confounded politicians, activists and academics seeking to reverse a trend that puts the country behind many of the world's developed nations in participation at the polls. In August, the Pew Research Center ranked the U.S.

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Why do you think the voter turnout rate of the United States is so much lower than many other countries? How could we improve voter turnout in the U.S.

Answer in four to five complete sentences.