After a long campaign, it's less
than two weeks before millions of Americans cast their votes. But
turnout could be as low as 50%. Why do so few people vote?
With
two of the most unpopular presidential candidates in history, some
pundits are concerned there could be a record low in voter numbers.
Turnout
has been on a historic downward trend in recent years - with the
exception of President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, said David Becker,
the executive director of the Center for the Election Innovation and
Research.
Participation has hovered between 48% and 57% in US
presidential elections since 1980. That contrasts with France, where
turnout regularly tops 80%.
Among OECD countries, the US ranked 31 of 34 for percentage of voting-age population.
How does the US compare to the rest of the world?
% of voting age population in country's last election
Americans face a number of hurdles beginning with registration. The
US is one of the only countries that requires voters to register
separately, rather than automatically signing them up, a step many
Americans never take.
"The burden has always been on the voter to find out how to register and get themselves registered," Mr Becker said.
But
some US states have taken efforts to make this process easier by
implementing "same-day registration" or allowing people to register to
vote while getting a driver's licence.
Other states have passed
more stringent voter ID laws, which some critics say make it more
difficult for minorities to cast a ballot.
More recently, Pew
Charitable Trusts worked with several states to form the Electronic
Registration Information Center (ERIC), to help update voter
registration rolls.
Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia now work with
ERIC, which Mr Becker helped create, and somewhere between 10 and 20
million people will have been contacted to register by this fall.
And
though Democratic political data firm TargetSmart found that 200
million Americans are now registered to vote for the first time in US
history, that may not translate to turnout.
Some critics also point to holding elections on Tuesdays, when much of America is at work, as part of the challenge.
To
resolve scheduling conflicts, some states offer absentee ballots, or
voting by mail, as well as early voting, but in places like Australia,
where voting is mandatory, the election is held on a Saturday.
The
historical lack of enthusiasm for voting in the US has been heightened
in this year's bitter presidential election - which has seen gruelling
months of mudslinging and a rise in hateful invective - leaving some
voters no other option than to tune it out.
Courtney Otto, a
29-year-old resident who lives in Romeoville, Illinois, said she plans
to abstain from voting on 8 November for that very reason.
"I'm
not informed. I feel like both candidates are more so telling me what
the other candidate has done wrong," she told the BBC.
"I don't want to know what the other person's not going to do. I want to know what you are going to do."
She
is not alone. Brian Meyer, a 32-year-old resident in southeast
Wisconsin, has also decided to not to vote in the presidential election
for the first time since he was 18.
Mr Meyer, a former Bernie
Sanders supporter who has been unable to throw his support behind either
candidate, said his decision not to vote was his form of protest.
"This is my way to protest the system for throwing American people overboard," he said.
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