On the gap between voter turnouts in the US and Indian elections
2024 is a national election year for both the US and India. Some web searching led me to check past voter turnouts in both countries, and I was quite surprised with the numbers:
The US (Source)
- 2004: 60.1%
- 2008: 62.5%
- 2012: 58%
- 2016: 59.2%
- 2020: 66.9%
India
The differences may not seem significant but when you normalize them in some fundamental ways, it makes the case for a larger discrepancy:
- During these two decades, the eligible voting population in India has been roughly four times more than that of the US due to the absolute population difference. And yet the former’s recent turnout percentages have been higher.
- Depending on their state, US citizens can put in their vote via post. It seems they can even potentially mail their vote if they’re abroad at the time of elections. Indian voters surprisingly don’t have any such flexibility, sans a few exceptions for accessibility like those granted to voters above the age of 80. For the 2024 national elections here in India, I had to travel from Bangalore to my birthplace Mumbai to be able to vote.
- While the numbers vary depending on how it’s measured, the adult literacy rates in the US seem to be at least 10%, higher than India.
When considering all of these things, it’s perplexing how a developed country like the US, almost 250 years from its independence, has lower voter turnouts than the squarely developing India free for only about ~75 years. Is it that the US being a developed country means many basic needs are tended to by default and so many voters don’t really care much about whom they should vote for?
I reached out to some friends in the US to help me understand some nuances regarding this situation. Here are pointers to that end.
- A poll from November 2020 shows that non-voters in the 2020 US election tended to have a disinterest in its outcomes more than any other factor for not voting, thinking that its politics don’t matter to their daily lives.
- Voting via post is not as straightforward as I thought. A friend said:
You can only vote in the state where you're registered (and registering requires that you live there). Voting procedures vary by state, even down to the county/city level. A few states do all-mail voting. Some allow mail voting but you have to sign up. And others only allow mail-in voting if you have an excuse for why you can't go in person. Here's an explainer from the 2020 election.
- Multiple people pointed out that Republican controlled legislatures try to make it harder to vote because “it disenfranchises people of color and folks who would be more likely to vote Democrat.” A friend added that in Georgia, it’s illegal to give someone a bottle of water while they're standing in line. One follow up on this whole point would be to check if Democrat controlled legislatures have a consistently higher voter turnout.
- As an interesting tangent, a friend in Europe pointed out that voting is mandatory in Australia.
As with everything, there are arguments for and against mandatory voting. Nevertheless, I think it instills an inherent duty that everyone needs to at least pay some attention to their civics.