How Many Registered Voters Didn't Vote In The 2016 Election

A poll of nonvoters shows in that location is little that would encourage them to vote — even campaigns haven't heavily invested in motivating this group. Caroline Amenabar/NPR; Eric Ray/Flickr hide explanation

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Caroline Amenabar/NPR; Eric Ray/Flickr

A poll of nonvoters shows there is little that would encourage them to vote — even campaigns haven't heavily invested in motivating this grouping.

Caroline Amenabar/NPR; Eric Ray/Flickr

More Americans voted in 2020 than in whatever other presidential election in 120 years. About 67% of eligible voters cast ballots this twelvemonth, but that nonetheless means a third did non.

That amounts to about 80 1000000 people who stayed home.

To improve understand what motivates these nonvoters, NPR and the Medill School of Journalism commissioned Ipsos to conduct a survey of U.S. adults who didn't vote this year. The Medill school's graduate students did deep dives into diverse aspects of the survey here.

Nonvoters' reasons for not voting include:

non being registered to vote (29%)
not existence interested in politics (23%)
not liking the candidates (20%)
a feeling their vote wouldn't accept made a departure (16%)
being undecided on whom to vote for (10%)

They are disengaged, disaffected and don't believe politics can brand a divergence in their lives. They are also more likely to be Latino, younger, make less money and have lower levels of educational activity than voters.

A lack of engagement overall

Difficulty voting doesn't appear to be a major reason why they don't vote. Three-quarters said they think it'south at to the lowest degree somewhat like shooting fish in a barrel to vote.

Information technology's more than that these voters feel a sense of alienation and apathy. They are by and large detached from the news and pessimistic about politics, the survey plant.

Politics is simply not the way to brand change, they said. Two-thirds of nonvoters hold, for case, that voting has little to practise with the way that real decisions are made in this country; they are 21 points more likely to say so than people who voted.

A bulk also said they believe it makes no difference who is elected president and that things will go on only as they did before. Nonvoters were 29 points more likely to say that than people who voted. (Read more about why they didn't vote, in their own words.)

These fourscore million Americans are also less engaged in their communities and have less confidence even in their local governments. They're also less likely to volunteer or to be civically engaged — doing things like sending letters to the news media and elected officials or participating in marches, protests and demonstrations.

Nonvoters are also more likely than voters to say that traditional parties and politicians don't care about people similar me; the mainstream media is more interested in making money than telling the truth; the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful; success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control; and to experience that almost bug discussed in Washington don't touch on them personally.

They are likewise less probable to say that elections in this state are gratis and fair for all; to have a favorable opinion of the news media; to watch, read or listen to news every solar day; or to hash out politics with friends or family. If family and friends vote, that makes people more probable to vote, the survey found.

Nonvoters too generally shunned news of the presidential election. For example, merely 38% said they followed stories about the presidential and congressional campaigns in 2020 at least fairly closely, compared with 79% of people who voted.

And they were far less likely to have watched the debates or conventions. Less than a third watched the presidential debates, compared with about 2-thirds of voters. What'south more than, two-thirds of nonvoters said they didn't scout the presidential or vice presidential debates or either the Republican or Democratic conventions.

Campaigns, which take sophisticated data programs showing which are the highest-propensity voters, don't seem to view this group every bit worth much effort. Less than a quarter of nonvoters said campaigns had reached out to them, offered information or asked them to vote. That'southward compared to almost one-half of voters.

Non much, it seems, would motivate them to vote, either. Asked what they call up would most encourage people to vote, the pinnacle answer was none or zip (35%). That was followed by cleaning up government (27%), having more candidates to choose from (twenty%), being automatically registered to vote (16%) and making Election 24-hour interval a national holiday (15%).

Making Election Day a national holiday, incidentally, was the top respond for voters (42%), showing the disconnect between the groups.

Who are nonvoters?

In that location are strong socioeconomic correlations betwixt voting and not voting.

Nonvoters tend to make less coin, take lower levels of education, be less probable to ain their domicile or are less likely to be married.

While only 21% of voters made $fifty,000 a year or less, 43% of nonvoters did. Only over a quarter of voters had a high schoolhouse degree or less, but a majority (52%) of nonvoters did. Sixty per centum of voters said they were married, but only 44% of voters did, which impacts economic power in a society when dual-income households are becoming increasingly necessary in more expensive parts of the country.

Nonvoters were too more than probable to be immature and Latino. 30-five percent of nonvoters in this survey were between the ages of xviii and 34, compared with 24% of voters. And notably, a quarter of nonvoters were Hispanic, compared with but 7% of voters.

Latinos tend to lean Autonomous, and voter-registration efforts with Latinos in most presidential years are key for Democrats. That was hampered in this twelvemonth of the coronavirus, and Democrat Joe Biden wound up underperforming in some heavily Latino areas such equally South Texas and South Florida.

Latinos are also more likely than other groups to say they are not interested in politics and most haven't voted in any other recent elections.

The top reason Latinos give for why they don't vote is that they don't care much about politics, merely another is that they have never been registered.

Only 52% of Latinos surveyed overall said they were registered to vote. That compares to lxxx% of white respondents and 78% of Black Americans.

Only three-quarters of Latino nonvoters surveyed are not registered.

Overall, 70% of nonvoters said they were not registered to vote.

NPR and the Medill Schoolhouse of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communication commissioned Ipsos to conduct a survey of U.S. adults who voted and did non vote in the 2020 presidential election. The survey of 1,843 adults included one,103 nonvoters and 740 voters. The survey was conducted using Ipsos' online KnowledgePanel from Nov. 4-13.

Overall, the survey has a +/-2.nine per centum point margin of error for all adults; for nonvoters, it is +/- 3.5 points; for voters, information technology is +/- iii.9 percentage signal margin.

The Medill School of Journalism's stories, produced by graduate students in its Washington program, are available at www.nonvoters2020.com .