In America’s hard-fought and closely contested presidential election of 2016, only 59 percent of

voting-age citizens cast a ballot, equaling about 86 million lost votes. Donald Trump won the
presidential election of 2016 with 63 million votes, just 28 percent of America’s voting-age
citizens. In the 2014 midterm elections, only 38 percent of American citizens participated,
equaling about 140 million lost votes. In closely contested U.S. Senate races across the nation in
2014, candidates typically won seats with votes equal to about one-fifth of the state’s citizens of
voting age. Turnout is yet lower in local elections. A 2014 study by two University of Wisconsin
researchers found that turnout in 144 mayoral elections across the nation averaged only 25.6
percent of the citizen voting-age population. Thus, candidates could win mayoral elections with
support from just over 10 percent of their citizen voting-age constituents.
Turnout is similarly bleak in primary elections that set the choices for voters in the general
elections. In 2016, when both parties had spirited contests for their presidential nominations,
about 28 percent of voting-age citizens participated in the Republican and Democratic
presidential primaries combined. In states holding caucuses, turnout averaged merely 7 percent.
Only about 8 percent of American citizens chose Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee and
only about 6 percent chose Donald Trump as the Republican nominee. In midterm elections,
primary turnout is yet lower. In 2014, just 28.4 million voters participated in the primary
elections in forty-five states that had at least one contested statewide primary for both parties,
equaling about 15 percent of the citizen voting-age population in those states.
In 1900, the United States led the democratic world in the voting participation of its citizens.
Now roles have reversed and America trails most comparable democracies in voter turnout.
According to a 2017 Pew Research Center study of thirty-five nations in the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States ranked twenty-eighth in voter
turnout.
Political gerrymandering and public cynicism about government help explain declining northern and
national voter turnout, even as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 removed barriers to minority participation.
The gerrymandering of legislative districts to favor one party over another at every level of government
kills political competition and the incentive to vote. It lets candidates choose their voters, rather than
voters choose their candidates. In the general elections of 2016, 42 percent of state representative seats
went uncontested. In congressional elections, 12 percent of seats were uncontested. However, only
about 10 percent of the remaining seats were competitive, with a winning margin of less than 10
percentage points. Not surprisingly, relatively few voters turned out in uncontested or lopsided
elections.
Since the early 1960s, Americans have lost faith in their government. According to data from the
Pew Research Center, in 1964, 77 percent of Americans “trusted the federal government to do
what is right just about always / most of the time.” By 1980, Americans’ trust in government had
fallen steadily and steeply to just 28 percent. Only once and briefly in the aftermath of the
September 11, 2001, attacks did trust in government rise above 50 percent. It then steadily
declined again to an average of just 19 percent from 2013 to 2017. The paradox here is that a lack
of faith in government deters voting, but government will better serve ordinary Americans if
they vote in larger numbers.
A consequence of nonvoting, partisan gerrymandering, and public cynicism is an American
government that is especially responsive to the wealthiest citizens, a throwback to the early
republic when tax and property qualifications prevailed across the nation. A study by Ellen
Shearer of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University found that 61 percent of
2012 voters earned $50,000 or more per year, compared to 41 percent of nonvoters. Only 12
percent of nonvoters earned more than $75,000, compared to 31 percent of voters.
Low turnout, an economically stratified electorate, and noncompetitive elections create a
political vacuum filled by special-interest groups. The upper-income bias of American turnout
produces election results favorable to the wealthy and business. Organizations with money,
power, and inside connections can tilt the outcomes of low-turnout contests by targeting only a
relatively few voters and backing favored candidates and parties. These interests can operate in
the dark as advocacy groups with no financial reporting requirements and the receipt of
unlimited funds from wealthy corporations under a recent Supreme Court decision.
Uncontested and lightly contested elections open legislators to the influence of lobbyists that
proliferate in Congress, state legislatures, and local governing bodies. In 2016, more than eleven
thousand registered lobbyists plied their trade in Washington, most of them representing
business interests. Nineteen of the top twenty spenders on lobbying in 2017 were business
associations or major corporations like AT&T and Boeing. Heading the list with a combined
spending of $164 million were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of
Realtors, and the Business Roundtable. Adding to the total of registered lobbyists were at least
an equal number of unregistered “shadow lobbyists.” Although comparable data is hard to
compile, much larger numbers of lobbyists are likely active in state and local governments. John
Delaney, a successful businessman who won a Maryland seat in Congress, warned that
“representative democracy is in crisis in the United States. . . Our electoral process has created
perverse incentives that have warped our democracy and empowered special interests and a
vocal minority.”
A shattering study by political science professors Martin Gilens of Princeton University and
Benjamin Page of Northwestern University validated Delaney’s warning. They found that
wealthy interests seeking profit, power, and control significantly shape policy outcomes in the
United States. The analysts found that when controlling for the power of economic elites and
organized interest groups, the influence of ordinary Americans registers at a “non-significant,
near-zero level.” They found that the policy preferences of business and the rich often sharply
diverge from those of ordinary citizens, and when they do, the economic elites and business
interests almost always win. An expanded suffrage might not break the golden rule of politics—
those who have the gold rule—but it would serve as an important corrective.
Without electoral reform, voter turnout will continue to stagnate in the United States, and a
small minority of the nation’s citizens will nominate and elect the public officials who govern the
nation. Changes in electoral laws and regulations are not a magic wand for raising turnout, but
they do matter, as shown by the experiences of high-turnout nations. According to data
compiled for 2016 by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, 15 percent of
respondents reported that they could not vote because they were unregistered, and another 15
percent were not asked, responded “did not know,” or refused to answer the question.