The Myth of the Vanishing Voter in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Until recently, American elections scholars lamented voter turnout declines and offered numerous explanations for this alarming trend. This decline turned out to be a myth. The growth of the population of persons ineligible to vote, particularly noncitizens and felons, had greatly outpaced the growth of the voting-age population. When turnout rates are calculated for the voting-eligible population, American voter turnout appears steady since 1972, and in the most recent elections has even reached comparable levels to the modern high water mark experienced the 1960s. I wish to lay the groundwork to understand voter eligibility and related measurement issues in a comparative context. This may lead comparative elections scholars to reevaluate recent, familiar sounding alarms of declining turnout rates across the world’s democracies.