Saving American Elections: A Diagnosis and Prescription for a He ...

a change. In October 2008, in response to the Gallup poll’s question “In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?,” 90 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied.⁸ Additionally, the contest for the Democratic nomination between two historic candidacies was unusually close, keeping the attention of the country (and, almost to an obsessive degree, of the media) well into the summer months. As the news media would not let viewers forget, the general election contest was also a historic contest, with the first African American major-party nominee and the first female vice presidential nominee to be put forward by Republicans (the race was indeed historic, but the media’s constant repetition of the fact was unnecessary).⁹ The campaign also featured charismatic candidates—Barack Obama and Sarah Palin—who kept the media attention at a fever pitch. The Obama campaign broke spending records and put together a well-organized and well-funded grassroots movement to get out the vote; the campaign even purchased a simultaneous half-hour block of time on a number of broadcast and cable networks. And despite the final outcome, the election was perceived as close until the numbers started to come in. What more could win over the public and get them to the polls? Indeed, many were won over: the 2008 election broke recent records with the highest percentage of voter turnout since 1960. This was perhaps nearly the best modern American voters could do, but how good was it? The voter turnout for these elections was 63 percent; that is, a little over six in ten eligible voters were moved enough by the “historic” circumstances to vote.¹⁰ And although turnout in 2008 increased over previous elections, the gains were not universal, as Curtis Gans and Jon Hussey noted: