INTRODUCTION

According to official counts, 67.6 million Americans voted in the November 1982 national elections. This is the largest number of voters ever in a nonpresidential election in the United States, exceeding by 8.1 million the number of votes cast in the 1978 elections. This official figure for 1982 represents 40 percent of the voting-age population (18 years and over), higher than the 38 percent voting in 1978.

Results from the November 1982 Current Population Survey (CPS) indicate a reported voter turnout rate of 49 percent, also slightly higher than the 46 percent reported in the survey for the November 1978 elections. These figures represent a continuation in the nationwide increase in reported turnout since the 1974 Congressional elections. (The Census Bureau began collecting voting and registration data in November 1964.)

Most of the findings in this report are based on answers to a series of questions asked of persons of voting age in the Current Population Survey approximately 2 weeks after the election of November 2, 1982. The data in this report relate to the civilian noninstitutional population 18 years old and over. The CPS supplement on voting and registration is designed primarily to facilitate comparisons of voter turnout among different population groups and is the principal source of such data for the Nation. Data from the November 1982 CPS indicate that 80.3 million persons reported voting in the November 1982 election, some 12.7 million more than actually voted in 1982, according to official returns. Some of the factors accounting for differences between official election returns and the CPS results are discussed in the section of this report entitled "Evaluation of the Accuracy of the Data."

Between 1964 and 1976 for Presidential elections and between 1966 and 1974 for Congressional elections, the Current Population Surveys have shown a decline of 10 percentage points in turnout for Presidential elections and an 11 percentage-point decline in turnout for Congressional elections (table A). However, this decline appears to have ended with the 1974 Congressional elections and the 1976 Presidential election. In the November 1978 election, voter turnout increased by one percentage point from the 45 percent level recorded for the 1974 election, while turnout for the 1980 Presidential election remained at the 1976 level of 59 percent. The increase in the 1982 turnout rate over the 1978 Congressional turnout rate suggestes that the voting rate may now be turning upward. Because of the tendency

CHARACTERISTICS OF VOTERS

It is evident from the survey data that once people make the effort to register to vote, they usually vote. As shown in table B, the difference in the percentage of the total 1982 population of voting age that voted ranges from a high of 50 percent for the White population to 43 percent for the Black population to 25 percent for the Spanish-origin population. However, among those who registered to vote, 76 percent of the White, 73 percent of the Black, and 72 percent of the Spanish-origin population, reported having voted (table C).

Voter participation rates are also related to the demographic and social characteristics of the electorate. Education is one of the most important socioeconomic characteristics related to voting since it affects not only the person's occupation and related economic characteristics, but may also influence the individual's knowledge of and commitment to the political process. In 1982, college graduates were nearly twice as likely to have voted (67

percent) as persons who had attended only elementary school (36 percent); persons with 4 years of high school had an intermediate voter participation rate of 47 percent. Overall, persons with at least 4 years of college constituted only 16 percent of the total voting-age population 18 years and over, but they made up 22 percent of the persons who reported having voted.

Employment is an important indicator of a person's likelihood of voting in an election. In the November 1982 election, 50 percent of employed persons reported that they voted, compared with only 34 percent of unemployed persons. Among employed persons in nonagricultural industries, government workers (Federal, State, and local) reported voting at a significantly higher level (67 percent) than either wage or salary workers in private industry (46 percent) or self-employed workers (57 percent). Persons not in the labor force, a group which includes many retired persons, reported voter participation rate of 49 percent, which was not significantly different from the 48 percent reported by all persons in the labor force (employed and un

employed combined). Persons who were in white-collar occupations were also more likely to vote (58 percent) than persons in blue-collar occupations (39 percent).

Data shown in table B indicate also that the relatively wealthier segments of the population are more likely to vote than other population groups. Sixty-two percent of the voting-age population living in families with incomes of $35,000 or more voted in the 1982 election, double the percentage (31) for persons with family incomes of less than $5,000.

Persons who had more established residences, as indicated by homeownership, were more likely to vote than persons who rented housing; 62 percent of homeowners reported voting in 1982, compared with 32 percent of renters.

TRENDS IN VOTER TURNOUT

Since 1964, when the Bureau of the Census first began collecting voting and registration data in its Current Population Survey, the general trend in turnout has been downward. In Congressional elections, the voter turnout declined from 55 percent in 1966 to 45 percent in 1974; in Presidential election years, turnout declined from 69 percent in 1964