2 Wisconsin: Democracy Inaction – Leftward-Ho

As I watched the numbers of protestors in Wisconsin grow to seventy thousand, I wondered how many of these people did not vote in November of 2010. I did not recall how close the Wisconsin off-year election was nor did I remember how wide the Obama victory was in Wisconsin in November of 2008.

In looking for election results and turnout, I found the source for this data is The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) which produces statistics on voter turnout and the number of registered voters. The GAB is the source for all the numbers in this commentary.

We can’t know for certain how many of the individuals who are upset with the actions of Governor Scott Walker did not vote. I suspect if the protestors could be questioned about this, those who did not vote might not want to admit it. It is probably similar to comparing the number of people who now claim they were in D.C. for MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech with the real turnout. If those who now claim to have been there were really there, the mall would not have been able to come close to holding them all.

Voters in Wisconsin have a system that is very easy to use. Voters are not required to declare a party and anyone who can provide evidence of residence can register and vote on election day.

Voting is important. I have never missed an election and have voted absentee while serving in the U.S. Army outside the USA and when I knew I would be away from home. In one local election, absentee votes were counted to determine the winner. I had voted absentee and my candidate won by only one vote. So please don’t tell me your vote does not count!

There are folks on the left who think it is a waste of time to vote because the system is corrupt. I would like to see individuals work in their neighborhoods to get people registered to vote, and educate their fellow citizens about the important issues of social justice, economic justice and peace. Our election system needs serious changing and voting is a key element to bringing about change.

We know voter turnout is lower for off-year elections, so how bad was it in Wisconsin in November of 2010?

According to the data from the Wisconsin GAB, the turnout was 49.7 percent of the voting age population in November of 2010. That’s not an impressive number, but additional meaning is provided by taking a look at the turnout for the 2008 Presidential election. In November of 2008, 69.2 percent of the voting age population voted.

In November of 2010 a total of 2,171,331 votes were cast by a voting age population of 4,372,347, so less than half, 2,201,016 people of voting age, did not vote. Republican Scott Walker defeated Democrat Tom Barrett (Mayor of Milwaukee) by a margin of 52.25% to 46.48% or by 5.77% of the vote. However, the percentages don’t tell as clear a picture as looking at the vote totals. Walker beat Barrett 1,128,941 to 1,004,303 or 124,638 votes. That may seem like a big margin unless you do some division and realize that the winning total is only 2.85% of the voting age population and only 5.66 percent of the voting age population that did not vote. These numbers make it clear that the results could have been very different.

It is also interesting to look at how the turnout in the 2010 off-year election compares with the Presidential election of 2008.

Since November of 2008, the voting age population (VAP) of Wisconsin increased by 41,652. In November of 2008 the VAP was 4,330,695 and the turnout was 69.2 percent because 2,996,869 people voted. Obama beat McCain 56.22% to 42.31%. This is a margin of 13.91 and a vote count of 1,677,211 to 1,262,393 for a difference of 414,818 votes.

Ok, so what happened in November of 2010? Obama’s margin of victory over McCain was 3.32 times larger than Walker’s win over Barrett.

548,270 more votes were cast for Obama in 2008 than were cast for Walker in 2010. In short, Barrett could have defeated Walker if those who voted for Obama had been fired up enough to get out and vote.

Walker could have been defeated if only 68 percent of the Obama voters turned out and voted for Barrett. I arrive at this number by dividing the total Walker vote count by the total Obama vote count and rounding up from 67.3 percent to the 68 percent. It appears the right was fired up and the left wasn’t.

Some may conclude that Obama supporters did not vote because they were discouraged by his (Obama’s) performance.

With most, if not every, precinct in the country reporting lower turnout in off-year elections, the data for Wisconsin is no exception. Every off-year election since 1948 shows the same pattern.

A couple of interesting comparasion notes are the following: