Study: Turnout varies across U.S.; Arizona consistently near bottom Top, bottom list

SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
Rank State Turnout Percent

* How states and the District of Columbia ranked in terms of voter turnout in the 2000 presidential election, according to the 2000 U.S. Census

Best
1. Minnesota 67.1
2. Maine 66.9
3. Alaska 65.5
4. Wisconsin 65.0
5. Vermont 63.8

Worst
51. Hawaii 40.2
50. Arizona 40.7
49. Nevada 41.0
48. Texas 42.8
47. Georgia 43.1

Democracy is unevenly exercised in America.

Voters in some communities, counties and even entire states are twice as likely to cast a ballot in this year's presidential election as are similar people in other areas, according to a study of official returns from the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections conducted by Scripps Howard News Service.

The findings put America's dedication to the electoral process in perspective just as the nation officially begins the 2004 presidential election season with today's Democratic caucuses in Iowa and the Jan. 27 New Hampshire primary.

Even among counties within the same state that have similar population characteristics, three in every 10 adults vote in some areas while eight in every 10 cast ballots in others.

"Yes, we've looked at this," said Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, president of the National Association of Secretaries of State. "The turnout seems to be highest in rural areas where people have to drive the farthest to vote. It's almost like an inverse relationship - the easier it is to vote, the less likely people are to do so."

State had highest turnout

Slightly more than 67 percent of Minnesotans of eligible age cast a ballot in the 2000 presidential election, the highest statewide turnout rate in the nation. Not far behind were Alaska, Maine, Vermont and Wisconsin.

At the other end of the scale are Arizona and Hawaii, where only 41 percent of the voting-age population participated in picking a president. Also suffering from below-average voter turnouts are California, Georgia, Nevada, Texas and the District of Columbia.

"Oh, I knew Arizona's really bad. But I didn't know we were dead last with Hawaii," said newly elected Arizona Secretary of State Janice Brewer. "After all, we have a war going on right now. People are actually fighting to give us our freedom. And yet, here, people just sit by and don't vote."

The variance in voting is strong at the county level. In Minnesota, for example, more than 77 percent of the adults in rural Lake County along the Canadian border cast a presidential ballot in 2000, compared with 59 percent in rural Nobles County on Minnesota's southern border with Iowa.

The differences are just as stark in Arizona. Fifty-three percent of the residents of eligible age in Greenlee County voted in 2000, compared with only 26 percent of the people in Yuma County.

"No simple answer"

Put another way, voter turnout is three times higher in Lake County, Minn., than it is in Yuma County. And these are not even the most extreme cases.

More than 82 percent of the adult residents of Kiowa and Dolores counties in rural Colorado voted in 2000, compared with just 25 percent of the people in Starr County, Texas, or Liberty County, Ga.

"There is no simple answer to all this," said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate in Washington.

"But some areas do have a strong civic tradition. There is a strong political climate in Minnesota, in Maine, in Wisconsin and Vermont. There is a kind of religion of civil involvement that is still alive there. Schools still try to turn out citizens. People actually believe they can get things done."

The Scripps Howard study found voter participation tends to decline in areas that have high degrees of poverty and relatively large numbers of foreign-born immigrants. Generally speaking, turnout is better in Northern states than in Southern ones.

Civic involvement matters

But a local tradition of civic involvement can overcome even the worst poverty.

Consider rural Perry County, Ala., one of the poorest places in America. Its 11,800 residents had an average household income of just $20,200 in the 2000 Census, less than half the national average. More than a third of the mostly-black population lives below the official poverty level.

"But here in Perry County, if we are running only 60 percent turnout in an election, then we've had a very poor showing," said Albert Turner Jr., son of a famous Alabama civil rights leader and a member of the Perry County Commission.

Nearly 70 percent of the adults of Perry County cast ballots in the 2000 general election, and 67 percent voted in 1996. The county almost always has Alabama's best turnout rate, easily surpassing that of suburban Shelby County, Alabama's most affluent area, located south of Birmingham.

"Voting is part of our culture, and we continue to preach it," Turner said. "People fought and died so we could acquire this right. So now it's incumbent on us to use the franchise. If you don't use it, you will lose it, we tell people."

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