The Non-Voters Have A 108 Year
Presidential Election Winning Streak!
By Hans Sherrer ©
(February 28, 2014)
The two years of media hype about
local, state and national candidates and their promises abruptly ended on the
4th of November 2012 with the counting of votes cast by mail and in person.
Every four years the presidential
campaign dominates the news, and 2012 was no exception. The press portrayed
that the election pitted a Democrat who wanted to expand the role of government
in society, against a wealthy Republican businessman who extolled the
marketplace as the way to better the lives of individuals. 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 remarkable. But not in the way the media had led the public expect.
The winner wasn’t a surprise because the Democratic Party ticket had a
pre-election lead in independent opinion polls. The surprise was that adults
didn’t share the media’s unbounded enthusiasm and attention focused on the election.
The 55% of possible voters who cast a ballot was 3% less than in 2008. The
media’s excitement about the election masked over the reality of how ordinary
it was: The winning candidate’s 28% of possible voters was the average of the Presidential winner from
1972 to 2012. In at least 36 of the
47 presidential elections since 1824 more possible voters chose to vote for one
of the presidential candidates than did so in 2012. A significantly higher
percentage of voters chose Herbert Hoover in 1928 than voted for Barack Obama –
who is one of the least popular presidents by voter mandate in
Another aspect of the 2012 election
that was true to form with previous presidential elections is the number of
non-voters significantly exceeded the winning candidates vote total. For 108
years the non-voters have “won” every presidential election. The last
presidential candidate to defeat the non-voters was Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.
Forty-five percent of adults chose not to vote in 2012. The non-voters won the
election by 61% over the “winning” Democratic candidate who received less than
3 in 10 possible votes. [2]
The non-voters landslide margin of
victory in 2012 was not an anomaly. It was actually less than the victory
margin in six of the ten elections since 1976, and it was only slightly higher
than the non-voters 58% victory margin in the 1932 election when Franklin
Roosevelt was elected president in 1932 on his “New Deal” platform. [3]
A notable aspect of the non-voters
overwhelming 2012 victory is it was accomplished without radio, television or
print media advertisements, stump speeches, or rallies encouraging people not
to vote. Thus to come in first the cost per non-voter was $0.00. In contrast
the Democratic presidential campaign in 2012 spent $10.38 per vote to finish
second, while the Republican presidential campaign spent $7.11 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 come close to winning the presidency. From
1828 to 2012 an average of 2% of possible voters selected a third-party
candidate. Consequently, another ordinary aspect of the presidential election
was that about 1% of voters selected a third-party candidate. [5]
The 2012 campaign rhetoric the major
parties relied on to sway voters didn’t conceal that they proposed policies that
were consistent with maintaining or expanding the status quo of the federal government. [6] So there was no substantive choice
for anyone who was willing to vote if they believed there was a genuine
philosophical difference between the two major parties. There is nothing new
about the similarity between the two major parties. In 1968 social commentator
and author Gore Vidal described the
So between the people disaffected
from voting for the practical reason of 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 2012.
Endnotes:
[1] For the facts in this article related to historical
voting in Presidential elections, see, “Non-voters compared to voters in
presidential elections,” http://forejustice.org/vote/nonvoterchart2012.htm
.
[2] Ibid., See,
2012: Non-voters % of vote compared to elected president.
[3] Ibid., See,
2012 and 1932: Non-voters % of vote compared to elected president.
[4] According to the OpenSecrects.org website that
compiles and analyzes election spending data, in the 2012 presidential campaign
the Democrats spent $684 million, and the Republicans campaign $433 million. So
the Democrats spent $10.38 for each of 65,917,257 votes, while the Republicans
spent $7.11 for each of 60,932,235 votes. The above 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, “2012 Presidential Race”,
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/ .
[5] “Non-voters compared to voters in presidential
elections,” http://forejustice.org/vote/nonvoterchart2012.htm
[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,”