| Chapter 1: | Symptoms |
elections held in nonpresidential election years is about 13 percentage points lower than those held with presidential elections. When it comes to electing their chief executive, some state residents are better at voting than others: about six in ten eligible voters in Minnesota, Montana, and South Dakota voted during this period, whereas only two out of ten eligible voters (19.4 percent) voted for governor in Kentucky’s 1999 election.24
Turnout in statewide primary contests for governor and U.S. senator are also very low. Figure 1.5 charts turnout numbers for these contests during presidential election years, with separate figures for those gubernatorial or senate primary contests held on the same day as the presidential primary and those held on separate dates. As the chart shows, turnout for these contests, typically around the 20 to 25 percent mark, has declined—with a record low of 14 percent in the 2008 contests that were held on a day other than the state’s presidential primary day.
As illustrated in figures 1.6 and 1.7, voter turnout in other—for offices such as lieutenant governor (when elected separately from the governor), secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, auditor, agriculture commissioner, and education commissioner—is lower, even when these elections are held at the same time as the presidential or gubernatorial contests. It appears that people vote for candidates at the top of the ballot, and then—for lack of information, lack of a strong preference, or lack of choice (many of these races are uncontested)—they stop voting. This phenomenon is called ballot falloff, and the rate of falloff is most dramatic for races lower down on the ballot. It is a problem that has been exacerbated by the elimination of straight party voting in most states. Whereas Virginia, with only 3 statewide officers to elect, saw a drop of only one percentage point in voting for governor and lieutenant governor, Louisiana saw a drop of 3.4 percentage points between voting for governor and voting for the commissioner of agriculture and forestry; California, a drop of 6.7 percentage points between voting for governor and voting for superintendent of public education; and Vermont, an 8.4 percentage point drop between voting for president and voting for the Vermont secretary of state.