A fundamental right in any democracy is the right to vote in elections, and data coming in from last week’s elections show that many Americans are passing on this important right in growing numbers.

National Turnout Rates

Chart from the United States Elections Project

The refusal to vote today is in stark contrast to how Americans voted in the years before and after the Civil War, when a smaller, less-educated population had arguably higher barriers to getting to the polls.

And in some ways, the voting pattern in 2014 resembled turnouts from the Great Depression and the start of World War II.

As of Wednesday, projections put that average national percentage of the voting eligible population (or VEP) that voted in 2014 mid-term elections at 36.3 percent.

How bad is that number? In recent years, turnout in mid-term elections has been much lower that turnout in presidential years, but the 2014 mid-term election turnout was the lowest since 1942, when just 33.9 percent of eligible voters cast ballots during World War II.

To put the 2014 voter turnout number in perspective, back in 2010, the turnout was considerably higher, with 41 percent of eligible people voting in elections that brought the Tea Party into national prominence. The 2012 presidential election had a turnout of 58.2 percent.

Based on projections from Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida, who runs the United States Elections Project, the 2014 mid-term turnout could rank in the bottom seven of all mid-term elections since 1789.

The only periods of lower mid-term turnouts were three elections before 1800, two elections in the 1920s and the 1942 election.

These historical numbers, the Project says, should be taken with a grain of salt, based on some data comparison issues. But these numbers also show broad trends that span decades.

For example, with all our modern technology and the massive promotion of political campaigns in all forms of media, Americans vote at a level closer to the Founding generations.

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Voter turnout in the 19th century, on average, was much higher in the years before and after the Civil War. Between 1832 and 1900, voter turnout in mid-term elections never fell below 60 percent. Since 1902, voter turnout has never hit 60 percent in a mid-term election.

Presidential elections hit their high point in the 1876 race between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden, when 82.6 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, topping the previous record of 81.8 percent set in the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln.

Again in the 19th Century, every presidential election between 1840 and 1900 had a higher voter turnout than any election after 1900.

Another fascinating trend is that in every election, with one exception, before 1840 more people voting in mid-term elections than presidential elections. Clearly, politics was local in the time of the Founders and the post-Founding generation.

Another troubling trend could be the combination of voter turnout numbers from the 2012 election (with 58.2 percent) and the 2014 election (at 36.3 percent). The four-year election cycle that most closely matches this combination is the election cycle of 1928 and 1930 at the onset of the Great Depression.

Among the state voter turnout data from the 2014 election, Indiana was the most-apathetic state, with a turnout of 28 percent. Maine had the highest turnout rate, at 59.3 percent.

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