Here I present my most shareable charts of 2016 voter turnout for dissemination on social media outlets. Please download and share. The purpose is to show the unused political power and its potential impact on the 2020 election and beyond. Voter turnout has been in decline for decades and it is particularly low for people under 50. This is ironic since people under 50 have a longer period of time that they will enjoy or endure the consequences of voting or not voting.
I am the author of this chart. I stand behind the figures represented by the chart, which are publicly available online through official government sites and NGOs. I will also provide the supporting sources below so that you can check my work.
A few items are not included, and if I have time I will broaden the dataset to include them in the next version. First, as many as 4%-5% of provisional ballots are rejected because of some problem or another. This is potentially millions of votes. It’s been studied and there are some findings, but I don’t have a full picture of that to share. Others have asked for demographic breakdowns to be overlaid onto this chart, and that may happen in a future version. I’m trying to keep it as simple and honest as possible this time, with the hopes that people see this and realize that they can make a big difference.
| index | description | population | percent | source | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | total population of 50 states and DC | 323,405,935 | 100.00% | US Census 2016 | https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/tables/2010-2017/state/totals/nst-est2017-01.xlsx |
| B | under 18 | 73,089,741 | 22.60% | 22.6% of total per US Census 2017, 2016 assumed similar | https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/AGE295217#viewtop |
| C | noncitizens | 22,638,415 | 7.00% | Kaiser Family Foundation citing US Census 2016 | https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-citizenship-status/?dataView=0¤tTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D |
| D | noncitizens under 18 | 5,116,282 | 1.58% | Assuming similar age distribution in citizen and noncitizen populations | formula |
| E | over 18 but not a citizen | 17,522,134 | 5.42% | subtract D from C | formula |
| F | eligible voter (estimated) | 232,794,060 | 71.98% | subtract B and E from A | formula |
| G | eligible voters (per US Elections Project) | 230,585,915 | 71.30% | US Elections Project | http://www.electproject.org/2016g |
| H | ineligible felons | 3,249,802 | 1.00% | US Elections Project | http://www.electproject.org/2016g |
| I | total votes cast for POTUS in 2016 | 136,669,237 | 42.26% | Federal Election Commission | https://transition.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2016/2016presgeresults.pdf |
| J | Trump (GOP) | 62,984,825 | 19.48% | Federal Election Commission | https://transition.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2016/2016presgeresults.pdf |
| K | Clinton (DNC) | 65,853,516 | 20.36% | Federal Election Commission | https://transition.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2016/2016presgeresults.pdf |
| L | Trump or Clinton (mainstream candidate) | 128,838,341 | 39.84% | add K and J | formula |
| M | fringe candidate | 7,830,896 | 2.42% | subtract L from I | formula |
| N | eligible votes not cast | 93,916,678 | 29.04% | subtract I from G | formula |
| O | disenfranchised | 6,104,584 | 1.89% | estimated 6.5% of non-voters based on Census 2016 survey | https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/p20/580/table10.xlsx |
| P | non-voters not disenfranchised | 87,812,094 | 27.15% | subtract O from N | formula |