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While less of a factor today, gender has historically been a factor in voter turnout. After 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote, women began slowly turning out to vote, and now they do so in high numbers. Today, more women vote than men. In 2012, 59.7 percent of men and 63.7 percent of women reported voting.
“Table 1. Reported Voting and Registration, by Sex and Single Years of Age: November 2012,” https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/voting/publications/p20/2012/tables.html (November 2, 2015). While women do not vote exclusively for one political party, 41 percent are likely to identify as Democrats and only 25 percent are likely to identify as Republicans.
Frank Newport. 12 June 2009. “Women More Likely to Be Democrats, Regardless of Age,” http://www.gallup.com/poll/120839/women-likely-democrats-regardless-age.aspx. In 2016, while women turned out to vote in record numbers,
Chris Bowers. 4 November 2016. “This is awesome: Women voting at higher rates than men relative to 2012 in EVERY STATE,” http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/4/1591326/-This-is-awesome-Women-voting-at-higher-rates-than-men-relative-to-2012-in-EVERY-STATE (November 9, 2016). the margin that Hillary Clinton won was more narrow in Florida than many presumed it would be and may have helped Donald Trump win that state. Even after allegations of sexual assault and revelations of several instances of sexism by Mr. Trump, Clinton only won 54 percent of the women’s vote in Florida. In contrast, rural voters voted overwhelmingly for Trump, at much higher rates than they had for Mitt Romney in 2012.
Check out this website to find out who is voting and who isn’t.
Just as political scientists and campaign managers worry about who does vote, they also look at why people choose to stay home on Election Day. Over the years, studies have explored why a citizen might not vote. The reasons range from the obvious excuse of being too busy (19 percent) to more complex answers, such as transportation problems (3.3 percent) and restrictive registration laws (5.5 percent).
“Table 10. Reported Voting and Registration, by Sex and Single Years of Age: November 2012,” https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/voting/publications/p20/2012/tables.html (November 2, 2015). With only 57 percent of our voting-age population (VAP) voting in the presidential election of 2012,
Table 1. Reported Voting and Registration, by Sex and Single Years of Age: November 2012. Calculated using total number of people voted divided by total population. however, we should examine why the rest do not participate.
One prominent reason for low national turnout is that participation is not mandated. Some countries, such as Belgium and Turkey, have compulsory voting laws, which require citizens to vote in elections or pay a fine. This helps the two countries attain VAP turnouts of 87 percent and 86 percent, respectively, compared to the U.S. turnout of 54 percent. Sweden and Germany automatically register their voters, and 83 percent and 66 percent vote, respectively. Chile’s decision to move from compulsory voting to voluntary voting caused a drop in participation from 87 percent to 46 percent.
Drew Desilver. 6 May 2015. “U.S. Voter Turnout trails Most Developed Countries,” http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/06/u-s-voter-turnout-trails-most-developed-countries.
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