SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

July 16, 2015 by Gary Price

New Report: “Who Votes? Congressional Elections and the American Electorate: 1978-2014”

July 16, 2015 by Gary Price

From the U.S. Census:

Who Votes? Congressional Elections and the American Electorate: 1978-2014, uses data collected by the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. This report provides a detailed historical portrait of voters in congressional elections, and it examines voting patterns by age, race and Hispanic origin and includes a look at early and absentee voting.

The voting rates of every age group between 18 and 64 also dropped between 1978 and 2014, while the voting rate in 2014 for those over 65 was not statistically different from 1978. In 2014, the voting rate for the 65-and-older age group was 59.4 per­cent compared with 23.1 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds.

The report also explores early and absentee voting. In the most recent congressional election of 2014, nearly a third (31.2 percent) of all voters reported either voting early, voting by mail or using some other form of voting. This was about a threefold increase from 1996, when only 10.5 percent of voters reported voting by alternative methods.

In addition to the report, the release also includes a detailed table package. Highlights from these tables include:

  • Voting rates for non-Hispanic whites — the largest portion of the electorate — have declined from 50.6 percent in 1978 to 45.8 percent in 2014. The group voted at a rate higher than their eligibility by 6.4 percentage points in 2014.
  • Voting rates for Hispanics declined from 1978 to 2014, dropping to a rate lower than their eligibility by 4.1 percentage points in the 2014 election.
  • Being married with a spouse living in the household corresponded to higher voting rates (50.9 percent) in 2014, particularly in comparison with those who reported having never been married (25.9 percent).
  • In 2014, reported voting rates were also high among those with advanced degrees (62.0 percent) and those who had lived in their current home for five years or longer (57.2 percent).
  • The top tier of the voting rate distribution also included government workers (56.5 percent) and military veterans (54.2 percent). The voting rate of government workers was not statistically different from the voting rates of those who had lived in their home for five years or longer.

On the 2014 Congressional Election

The 2014 congressional election turnout rate of 41.9 percent was the lowest since the U.S. Census Bureau first began asking Americans about voting and citizenship status in 1978. The 2014 voting rate was 7.0 percentage points lower than in 1978 and down from the 45.5 percent that reported voting in the 2010 congressional election.

Direct to Full Text Report (16 pages; PDF) & Embedded Below
Direct to Data Tables (.xls and .csv)
Direct to Infographic

Who Votes? Congressional Elections and the American Electorate: 1978–2014

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Data Files, Public Libraries, Resources, School Libraries

SHARE:

dataElectionsStatisticsU.S. Census

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

NY Times: "New York Public Library Acquires Joan Didion’s Papers"

From The NY Times: When [Joan] Didion died in 2021 at age 87, the news set off an outpouring of tributes to a writer who fused penetrating insight and idiosyncratic personal voice, ...

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: María Estorino Named Vice Provost for University Libraries and University Librarian

Below, Find the Full Text of a Letter Sent to the Carolina Community From Kevin M. Guskiewicz University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz and J. ...

Boston Public Library Celebrates Black History Month with Annual “Black Is…” Booklist & Special Events

From the Boston Public Library: The Boston Public Library is proud to contribute to the celebration of Black History Month with its annual “Black Is…” booklist. The booklist aims to commemorate ...

Research Resources: New Online Tool Provides Health Snapshot of All 435 U.S. Congressional Districts (Congressional District Health Dashboard)

From NYU Langone: Researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, unveiled the Congressional District Health Dashboard (CDHD), a new online tool that ...

Report: "cOAlition S Confirms the End of Its Financial Support for Open Access Publishing Under Transformative Arrangements After...

From a cOAlition S  Announcement: Transformative arrangements – including Transformative Agreements and Transformative Journals – were developed to encourage subscription journals to transition to full and immediate open access within a defined timeframe (31st December 2024, ...

Library of Congress: Hannah Sommers Appointed New Associate Librarian for Researcher and Collections Services

From the Library of Congress: The Library of Congress announced today the appointment of Hannah Sommers as the new Associate Librarian for Researcher and Collections Services in the Library Collections and Services Group. In this role, Sommers will lead the future of the Library’s collections and the services it delivers to researchers and users. She will be central ...

Virginia Tech: University Libraries Dean Tyler Walters Appointed Board Chair of Academic Preservation Trust; IEEE Computer Society 2023...

As Book Bans Increase Across the Country, a Boston University Scholar is Fighting Back Core’s Library Resources & Technical Services Journal Goes Fully Open Access Digital Image Processing: It’s All ...

Funding: Library Freedom Project Receives $1 Million Grant Award From the Mellon Foundation to Advance Critical Privacy and...

Here’s the Full Text of the Library Freedom Project (LFP) Announcement:   Library Freedom Project (LFP) has been awarded $1,000,000 from the Mellon Foundation to expand the program’s work. For ...

Report: Sweden’s National Library Turns Page to AI to Parse Centuries of Data

From a NVIDIA Blog Post: For the past 500 years, the National Library of Sweden has collected virtually every word published in Swedish, from priceless medieval manuscripts to present-day pizza ...

IFLA Trend Report 2022 Released; Preprint: "The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform"; & More Headlines

Archive for Amateur Radio Grows to 51,000 Items (via Internet Archive) Four New Appointments to the eLife New Board Members IFLA Trend Report 2022 Released (via International Federation of Library ...

Jennifer Vinopal Named HathiTrust's First Associate Director

Here’s the Full Text of Today’s HathiTrust Announcement: HathiTrust is pleased to announce that Jennifer Vinopal has been appointed HathiTrust’s first Associate Director.  Vinopal will assume a key leadership role ...

American Library Association Announces New $5.5 Million Transformational Grant From the Mellon Foundation

Here’s the Full Text of the ALA Announcement: The American Library Association (ALA) is pleased to announce a new grant in the amount of $5,515,000 from the Mellon Foundation to ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Tweets by infoDOCKET

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2023 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.