If Twitter is any gauge of voter behavior, voting today is a passing fad, with our #ILVote hashtag having arrived on and subsequently dropped from the microblog’s local trending topics. Chicagoans evidently are jazzed about Lost, Punxatawny Phil and Blackhawk Dave Bolland.
It appears voters just aren’t coming out today. Whether it’s because they’re at work, voted early or just don’t care is unknown.
Anyway, the lull in voters has given me time to peruse the media packet prepared by the Chicago Board of Elections. It includes voter data from elections past, and there is some shocking data in there.
In 2010, according the election board’s data, Chicago’s voter registration surged 11.21 percent, to 1,444, 494. That’s up from 2006, w
hich was 1,298,872, a decrease of almost six percent from 2002, which had about 1.37 million voters. That held steady with 1998.
It’s unclear why voter registration is up. Maybe it’s lingering from the excitement of the Obama campaign. Maybe a socially conscious crop of college grads moved in to the city. In any event, they’re staying away from the polls.
Which is why I was shocked – shocked! – to see some historical data.
Let’s preface this by saying people are generally impressed if voting hits 40 percent or so.
In Chicago’s primary elections of 1942, voting was at 53 percent (I’m rounding up). In the general election of 1942, it was 77 percent.
Then in the 1944 primary, it dropped to 39 percent. But in the general, it was – get this – 92 percent. The ward bosses worked hard that year.
General election turnout stayed above 50 percent until 1974, when it dipped to 55 percent. It was 81 percent in the 1972 general. It waffled between 40 and 71 percent in the general, until hitting a high of 74 percent in, you guessed it, 2008.
I’ll try to find this document online to give you more perspective. You can see all the general, municipal and primary data since the early 1940s.