[OC] U.S. Presidential election results, including eligible voters who did not vote. Employs voter turnout estimates to determine an estimated population of eligible voters, then calculates election results (including “Did Not Vote” and discounting “Other” votes of little consequence) as a percentage of that. Proportions were rounded to thousandths (tenths of a percent) and reflect minor discrepancies due to rounding in reported voter turnout and vote share data.
Uses R for fundamental data aggregation, ggplot for rudimentary plots, and Adobe Illustrator for annotations and final assembly.
Federal Election Commission, Historical Election Results:
Vote.org. Check your voter registration!!! Some citizens are getting their information purged and have to resign up. Encouraged others to register to vote.
So Biden was the first candidate to actually win the vote as far as we know? That’s a cool fact
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”
― Elie Wiesel
This is, in fact, beautifully presented data.
It also shows why I hate the US 2-party system so much. There’s no real incentive to appeal to the entire country. Our elections have been gamified and min-maxed around the electoral college. Stupid. Ranked choice and a straight up popular vote would almost certainly get more people out to vote. The sentiment is that there’s no point in voting if you already know that your state leans heavily the opposite direction.
The GOP has won ONE election with the popular vote in the last 3 decades, and the 1 was right after they started a war (when a president usually has the greatest support). No wonder they’re working so hard to place as many people as they can in election official and oversight positions.
I had thought overall turnout was going down with time. I guess not!
I wonder if they broke down the “non-voter” category by electoral college votes, would “non-voter” win every election from 1980 to 2016?
Did not vote is the lifeblood of republicans. They know if everybody showed up they would lose in a landslide so they try to turn that segment off as much as possible with toxic rhetoric, while making it harder to vote.
My vOtE wOn’T MaKe a DiFfErEnCe!! (I too hate first past the post and electoral college shenanigans)
So overall, the most winning party is “none of the above”.
It would be interesting to see these statistics only for swing states since they are the only voters that actually matter in presidential elections anyway.
This is insane to me. I just can’t imagine caring so little about who makes the decisions that affect me daily, let alone the privelege and selfishness required to not care what happens to other people.
How did Bush win in 2000 if he had less votes than Gore?
Fine, trump accomplished 1 thing. He is so hated that he made america as a whole more likely to vote. You see that foreigners? Yes we have trump, and im sorry, but our country is improving solely based on our hatred of him. So give us a break.
The only oddity is Bush vs Gore and the extra significant digit
The fact that the **WON**/**LOST** labels are necessary is depressing
Interesting that the both parties have around 25-30 percent in every election with two (GOP) or four (DEM) exceptions. And only Biden and Obama were positive exceptions.
It is good to see the general participation is growing but it is clear why the GOP are not interested in pushing this trend further.
Damn. We “did not vote”ers had such a nice winning streak going before taking that L
Honestly I wish we had compulsory voting like some countries so we could get a proper representation of who should urn the country.
Your depressing reminder that “I don’t care” has won almost every US election
I have a theory that part of why Trump won in 2016 was many people who disliked him thought he had no chance of winning and couldn’t stomach voting for Clinton so they abstained. Trump actually winning was then a wake-up call in 2020 to motivate anti-Trump people to vote against him. The fact that the proportion of voters went up 7% in 2020 with Biden getting 5% more vote share than Clinton seems like evidence in favor of my theory
I wonder how different things would be if Ross Perot hadn’t run. Probably every election through at least’04 would have been different
That the best we’ve ever done is 33% not voting is the biggest problem. While it’s awesome that more of the electorate is participating, that number should be significantly smaller in a fully functioning democracy.
The solution, as is common in many first world nations with 90% voter participation, is automatic voter registration and compulsory voting. It shouldn’t be optional. You should have to opt out, not in.
In other news, Turnout matters. Most under-understood effect when folks look at polls.
Let’s get out there and vote!!!
Crazy Clinton won both his elections with only 1 out of 4 people supporting him.
Would be interested to see how the percentage of people ineligible to vote has changed over time paired with this data
So, ridiculous as he may be, Trump is actually the greatest catalyst for voter participation in the last 50 years, regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof. More people voted than ever before.
We really need to incentivize voting in the US We’re all part of a society, it’s a responsibility of being a member of a society
Reagan won by only 4%? Imagine how much better the world would be if the US and Britain didn’t swing to the right.
So, Gen-Z is the first generation to take voting seriously… it would seem.
Where’s Nader in 2000? He got like 3 million votes (unfortunately)
2 thoughts. First, it’s pretty amazing how much mail in voting increased turn out from both sides. Second thought, how amazing is it that 1 out of every 3 people you see, just doesn’t care enough to vote? I’ll bet my life that 1 out of 3 still complains though.
I am not saying don’t vote, fucking vote, people, please.
Presenting it like this is a tad misleading because in many states, even if *every* non-voter turned up and voted for the other candidate, that candidate would still lose.
So I do understand *why* people don’t vote, when it pretty much is pointless in your situation, but it’s still a civic duty and you should still do it, damnit, you never know when it might count.
Honestly it’s much more important to vote in those States for smaller elections for state and federal congressional representatives and senators, and local elections than it is for Presidential elections, because for the most part, when 80% of voters are registered for the party of and voting for the other candidate, and polling really well in that state, it really does make it feel like an exercise in futility, but many elections have been decided by a single vote, so.
Again, VOTE.
This is why I want a non-partisan system in America. George Washington knew this and called this. He knew a two-party system would be the downfall of America. It’s also why I can’t stand the “Well, a majority of America wanted XYZ candidate”. Well, actually, they didn’t. A little over a third wanted them, a little less than a third didn’t want them, and the other rough third couldn’t give a crap either way. So, in fact, a majority of the country didn’t want that person, with a rough third not wanting either because both choices suck. If we’d stop this BS party politics that have become damn near cult-like alliances, we’d be in a much better place politically.
Well, at least the non-voter percentage is sort of trending downwards!
holy shit in 2016 only 28% of americans voted for the president
This is exactly why Election Day should be a national holiday, we should have ranked choice voting, and should dismantle the Electoral College. In that order, I think. We could push RCV to number 1 maybe.
![[OC] The Influence of Non-Voters in U.S. Presidential Elections, 1976-2020](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/t7tvunm1wfhd1-1920x1024.png)
39 comments
[OC] U.S. Presidential election results, including eligible voters who did not vote. Employs voter turnout estimates to determine an estimated population of eligible voters, then calculates election results (including “Did Not Vote” and discounting “Other” votes of little consequence) as a percentage of that. Proportions were rounded to thousandths (tenths of a percent) and reflect minor discrepancies due to rounding in reported voter turnout and vote share data.
Uses R for fundamental data aggregation, ggplot for rudimentary plots, and Adobe Illustrator for annotations and final assembly.
Federal Election Commission, Historical Election Results:
[https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/election-results-and-voting-information/](https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/election-results-and-voting-information/)
University of Florida Election Lab, United States Voter Turnout:
[https://election.lab.ufl.edu/voter-turnout/](https://election.lab.ufl.edu/voter-turnout/)
United States Census Bureau, Voter Demographics:
[https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/voting.html](https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/voting.html)
Vote.org. Check your voter registration!!! Some citizens are getting their information purged and have to resign up. Encouraged others to register to vote.
So Biden was the first candidate to actually win the vote as far as we know? That’s a cool fact
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.”
― Elie Wiesel
This is, in fact, beautifully presented data.
It also shows why I hate the US 2-party system so much. There’s no real incentive to appeal to the entire country. Our elections have been gamified and min-maxed around the electoral college. Stupid. Ranked choice and a straight up popular vote would almost certainly get more people out to vote. The sentiment is that there’s no point in voting if you already know that your state leans heavily the opposite direction.
The GOP has won ONE election with the popular vote in the last 3 decades, and the 1 was right after they started a war (when a president usually has the greatest support). No wonder they’re working so hard to place as many people as they can in election official and oversight positions.
I had thought overall turnout was going down with time. I guess not!
I wonder if they broke down the “non-voter” category by electoral college votes, would “non-voter” win every election from 1980 to 2016?
Did not vote is the lifeblood of republicans. They know if everybody showed up they would lose in a landslide so they try to turn that segment off as much as possible with toxic rhetoric, while making it harder to vote.
My vOtE wOn’T MaKe a DiFfErEnCe!! (I too hate first past the post and electoral college shenanigans)
So overall, the most winning party is “none of the above”.
It would be interesting to see these statistics only for swing states since they are the only voters that actually matter in presidential elections anyway.
This is insane to me. I just can’t imagine caring so little about who makes the decisions that affect me daily, let alone the privelege and selfishness required to not care what happens to other people.
How did Bush win in 2000 if he had less votes than Gore?
Fine, trump accomplished 1 thing. He is so hated that he made america as a whole more likely to vote. You see that foreigners? Yes we have trump, and im sorry, but our country is improving solely based on our hatred of him. So give us a break.
The only oddity is Bush vs Gore and the extra significant digit
The fact that the **WON**/**LOST** labels are necessary is depressing
Interesting that the both parties have around 25-30 percent in every election with two (GOP) or four (DEM) exceptions. And only Biden and Obama were positive exceptions.
It is good to see the general participation is growing but it is clear why the GOP are not interested in pushing this trend further.
Damn. We “did not vote”ers had such a nice winning streak going before taking that L
Honestly I wish we had compulsory voting like some countries so we could get a proper representation of who should urn the country.
Your depressing reminder that “I don’t care” has won almost every US election
I have a theory that part of why Trump won in 2016 was many people who disliked him thought he had no chance of winning and couldn’t stomach voting for Clinton so they abstained. Trump actually winning was then a wake-up call in 2020 to motivate anti-Trump people to vote against him. The fact that the proportion of voters went up 7% in 2020 with Biden getting 5% more vote share than Clinton seems like evidence in favor of my theory
I wonder how different things would be if Ross Perot hadn’t run. Probably every election through at least’04 would have been different
That the best we’ve ever done is 33% not voting is the biggest problem. While it’s awesome that more of the electorate is participating, that number should be significantly smaller in a fully functioning democracy.
The solution, as is common in many first world nations with 90% voter participation, is automatic voter registration and compulsory voting. It shouldn’t be optional. You should have to opt out, not in.
In other news, Turnout matters. Most under-understood effect when folks look at polls.
Let’s get out there and vote!!!
Crazy Clinton won both his elections with only 1 out of 4 people supporting him.
Would be interested to see how the percentage of people ineligible to vote has changed over time paired with this data
So, ridiculous as he may be, Trump is actually the greatest catalyst for voter participation in the last 50 years, regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof. More people voted than ever before.
We really need to incentivize voting in the US
We’re all part of a society, it’s a responsibility of being a member of a society
Reagan won by only 4%? Imagine how much better the world would be if the US and Britain didn’t swing to the right.
So, Gen-Z is the first generation to take voting seriously… it would seem.
Where’s Nader in 2000? He got like 3 million votes (unfortunately)
[Voter Apathy Party](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vqgLWnxmd0) historically reigning supreme.
2 thoughts. First, it’s pretty amazing how much mail in voting increased turn out from both sides. Second thought, how amazing is it that 1 out of every 3 people you see, just doesn’t care enough to vote? I’ll bet my life that 1 out of 3 still complains though.
I am not saying don’t vote, fucking vote, people, please.
Presenting it like this is a tad misleading because in many states, even if *every* non-voter turned up and voted for the other candidate, that candidate would still lose.
So I do understand *why* people don’t vote, when it pretty much is pointless in your situation, but it’s still a civic duty and you should still do it, damnit, you never know when it might count.
Honestly it’s much more important to vote in those States for smaller elections for state and federal congressional representatives and senators, and local elections than it is for Presidential elections, because for the most part, when 80% of voters are registered for the party of and voting for the other candidate, and polling really well in that state, it really does make it feel like an exercise in futility, but many elections have been decided by a single vote, so.
Again, VOTE.
This is why I want a non-partisan system in America. George Washington knew this and called this. He knew a two-party system would be the downfall of America. It’s also why I can’t stand the “Well, a majority of America wanted XYZ candidate”. Well, actually, they didn’t. A little over a third wanted them, a little less than a third didn’t want them, and the other rough third couldn’t give a crap either way. So, in fact, a majority of the country didn’t want that person, with a rough third not wanting either because both choices suck. If we’d stop this BS party politics that have become damn near cult-like alliances, we’d be in a much better place politically.
Well, at least the non-voter percentage is sort of trending downwards!
holy shit in 2016 only 28% of americans voted for the president
This is exactly why Election Day should be a national holiday, we should have ranked choice voting, and should dismantle the Electoral College. In that order, I think. We could push RCV to number 1 maybe.