New research finds a remarkable correlation between the amount of money an American makes and their likelihood of voting in a presidential election.
The chart below, based on Census data analyzed by the liberal think tank Demos, illustrates the relationship between income and voter turnout.
The data, which uses the 2008 election as a benchmark, finds that voter turnout is roughly flat at 41 percent for those who make under $15,000 per year. After that, turnout rises in every subsequent income bracket, peaking at 78 percent among Americans who earn $150,000 or more.
The Demos paper is called “Stacked Deck: How the Dominance of Politics by the Affluent & Business Undermines Economic Mobility in America.” It is available here.
That’s astonishing.
It also feeds into something else I’ve noticed about the US as an external observer: the lack of any real attempt to win a broad mandate by actually convincing 50% +1 of the population of a certain view point.
Admittedly being somewhat idealistic, I tend to think that the purpose of democracy (and elections) is to ensure, as best as possible, that majority views become law. In the US so few vote and the Electoral College and the Senate are so warped from the equal worth of a vote, that the nexus between a majority view and an election winning view is broken.
Rather than screaming in rage, the US seems to accept this distortion and then try to make the best of it. But it means “politics” is well and truly removed from “democracy” as I see it.