Long lines crowd out voter myths

With the election two days off, and with early voting chugging along at record paces both here in Utah and many places nationwide, it may be time to re-examine some old stereotypes.

For instance, if someone were to ask you whether Americans in general have become more or less interested in voting over the past 34 years, what would you say?

My guess is most of you would say we're becoming a nation of apathetic lunkheads whose lives of luxury allow them to sit back in good conscience and let a few other people make decisions they really don't think matter much. But two things have led me to believe this isn't true.

The first was an opinion piece published recently in the Washington Post, authored by Michael McDonald, an assistant professor at George Mason University and a visiting fellow at the Brooking Institution in Washington.

McDonald tackled what he called five voting myths, the top one being that voter turnout keeps dwindling in the United States. Instead, he said, we're looking at the situation wrong. Most voter-turnout statistics compare the number of people who vote with the number of people of voting age. The problem is this includes adults who are not citizens or are convicted felons (in Utah, of course, felons can vote).

McDonald said the percentage of these ineligible adults has grown "from about 2 percent of the voting-age population in 1972 to 10 percent today." When you account for this difference, voter turnout is virtually unchanged since 1972. That means it has stayed at about a 55.3 percent average during presidential elections and 39.4 percent during midterm years, such as this one.

But recent trends have been upward. The 2004 election had a nationwide turnout of 60.3 percent, which, he said, is about the same as in the 1950s and '60s.

His other four myths are that other nations' voting rates indicate they have more vibrant democracies, that negative ads keep voters away, that a Republican "72-hour campaign" at the end of any election wins races, and that the way to dramatically increase voter turnout is to make registration easier.

That last one was heartwarming for this longtime foe of gimmicks such as the motor-voter law, which allows you to register to vote as you register your car. McDonald said studies show the law may have increased turnout by only 2 percent at the most.

But the idea that we're not a nation of contagiously apathetic people is one of the most encouraging things I've heard in a long time. Which leads me to the second thing. We're also not a nation of cynics.