US presidential election voter turnout based on voting age population (VAP) has been around 50-60% since 1948, with the highest being 63% in 1960. Voter turnout based on registered voters has consistently been 85% or higher since 1964, except for 2008. The lowest VAP turnout was in 1920, 1924, and 1988, while the highest was in 1840.
Voter turnout based on voting age population (VAP) – the percentage of people of legal voting age who actually vote – for US presidential elections has remained around 50-60% since 1948. The highest VAP polling rate during that period was in 1960, when about 63 percent of the VAP turned up to vote and John F. Kennedy was elected president.
Other data on voter turnout:
If voter turnout is calculated in terms of the percentage of registered voters voting, rather than by the VAP, then voter turnout in the United States has been consistently about 85 percent or higher every year since 1964 with the exception of 2008, when Barack Obama was elected. Voter turnout based on the percentage of registered voters who cast their votes was about 70 percent in that election—about 16 percent lower than it was in the 2004 election, in which George W. Bush was re-elected—because the number of registered voters has increased much more than the number of people who voted.
The lowest VAP turnout in a U.S. presidential election since 1828 was in 1920, when about 49.2 percent of the VAP voted and Warren G. Harding was elected; in 1924, when about 48.9 percent of the VAP voted and Calvin Coolidge was re-elected; and in 1988, when about 50.15 percent of the VAP voted and George HW Bush was elected.
The highest U.S. voter turnout based on the VAP since 1828 was in 1840, when more than 80% of the VAP actually voted. That was the election when William Henry Harrison was elected in place of Martin van Buren. Harrison died on his 32nd day in office. The election of 1828 was unique because the four men running for president and vice president were all presidents of the United States in their lifetime: William Henry Harrison; his vice president, John Tyler; the owner, Martin Van Buren; and James Polk, who got one vote to be Vice President alongside Harrison, although he was not Harrison’s Vice President.
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