The Non-Voters “Won” Another Landslide Victory In 2008

Two years of media hype about local, state and national candidates and their promises abruptly ended on the 4th of November with the counting of votes cast by mail and in person.

Every four years the presidential campaign dominates the news, and 2008 was no exception. The election was described as historic because the Democratic candidate’s skin color reflected the different backgrounds of his mother and father, and the Republican vice-presidential candidate was a young, hard charging female governor. Looking beneath the media gloss revealed that the actual differences in the proposed policies of the Democratic and Republican Party candidates were more nuanced than substantive.

When the votes were counted the result was indeed remarkable. But not in the way the media had made the public expect. The winner wasn’t a surprise because the Democratic Party ticket had a substantial pre-election lead in all independent opinion polls. The surprise was that adults didn’t share the media’s unbounded enthusiasm of the election’s historicity. The 56.8% of possible voters who cast a ballot was only 1% more than in 2004. The media’s excitement about the election masked over the reality of how ordinary it was, since in at least 30 presidential elections more possible voters chose to vote for one of the presidential candidates than did so in 2008. ^¹

Another aspect of the 2008 election that was true to form with previous presidential elections is the number of non-voters significantly exceeded the winning candidates vote total. In the last 100 years the non-voters have “won” every presidential election. One hundred million people chose not to vote in 2008 – 43% of possible voters – while the “winning” Democratic candidate received only 3 in 10 possible votes. So the non-voters won the election by 44%, and 7 out of 10 possible voters rejected the candidate elected president! ^²

The non-voters huge 44% margin of victory in 2008 was not an anomaly. It was identical to the non-voters victory margin 172 years earlier in the 1836 election when Martin Van Buren was elected president. It was also only slightly less than the non-voters historical average 49% margin of victory in a presidential election. ^³

A notable aspect of the non-voters overwhelming 2008 victory is it was accomplished without a single radio, television or print media political advertisement, or a single stump speech or gathering encouraging people not to vote. Thus the cost per non-voter was $0.00. In contrast the Democratic presidential campaign in 2008 spent $10.51 per vote to finish second, while the Republican presidential campaign spent $5.51 per vote in their third place effort. ^⁴

The reasons why people choose not to vote run the gamut from a philosophical aversion to participating in the political voting process under any circumstance, to not liking the choice of major party candidates in a particular election. Voting for a third-party candidate may be emotionally satisfying for some people, but that is all, because no such candidate has ever won the presidency. In 2008 about 1% of voters selected a third-party candidate, which was another ordinary aspect of the presidential election. ^⁵

The major party candidate’s 2008 campaign rhetoric used to sway voters masked that their proposed policies were consistent with maintaining or expanding the status quo of the federal government. ^⁶ So there was no choice for anyone willing to vote if there was a genuine philosophical difference between the two candidates with a chance to be elected. There is nothing new about the similarity between the two major parties. In 1968 social commentator and author Gore Vidal described the United States as being ruled by the Property Party that has two branches alternately holding the reins of power – the Democrats and Republicans. ^⁷

So between the people disaffected from voting by the lack of a meaningful choice between the major party candidates or who otherwise believe voting for Twiddledee or Tweedledum is a waste of time, and those who don’t vote for philosophical reasons, the non-voters won another landslide victory in 2008.

* 2008 presidential campaign spending data updated on June 24, 2010, from OpenSecrets.org website.

1 See, “Non-voters compared to voters in presidential elections,” http://forejustice.org/vote/nonvoterchart.htm

4 According to the OpenSecrects.org website that compiles and analyzes election spending data, in the 2008 presidential campaign the Democrats spent $730 million, and the Republicans campaign $330 million. So the Democrats spent $10.51 for each of 69,456,897 votes, while the Republicans spent $5.51 for each of 59,934,814 votes. These cost per vote totals don’t include the many millions spent on print and television advertisements favoring a campaign by persons and organizations not directly affiliated with that particular campaign. See, “Banking on Becoming President”, http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.php?cycle=2008 (last visitied June 24, 2010).

5 From 1828 to 2008 2.1% of possible voters selected a third-party candidate. The most successful third-place candidate was Millard Fillmore in 1856, who received 17% of the possible votes, and the second most successful was John C. Breckinridge in 1860, who received 14.7% of the possible votes.

6 In The Political Illusion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967) Jacques Ellul observes that a change in political leadership through the elective process does not result in a significant change to the existing bureaucracy’s or the manner in which they perform. For example, many German civil servants performed the same job in essentially the same way under during the Nazi era and in the political regimes that preceded and followed it.

7 See “Homage to Daniel Shays,” in Gore Vidal, “Homage to Daniel Shays: Collected Essays 1952-1972,” New York: Random House, 1972, pp.434-449.