Turnout in U.S. has soared in recent elections but by some measures still trails that of many other countries
When comparing turnout among the voting-age population in recent national elections in 50 countries, the U.S. ranks 31st.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
When comparing turnout among the voting-age population in recent national elections in 50 countries, the U.S. ranks 31st.
In nearly all of the 44 advanced economies we analyzed, consumer prices have risen substantially since pre-pandemic times.
Third-quarter 2021 inflation was higher in nearly all (39) of the 46 nations analyzed than in the pre-pandemic third quarter of 2019.
Americans voted in record numbers in last year’s presidential election, casting nearly 158.4 million ballots.
We identified 261 U.S. jurisdictions that have adopted some voting method other than the winner-take-all system most American voters know.
As of the end of 2017, 57% of 167 countries with populations of at least 500,000 were democracies of some kind, and only 13% were autocracies.
The share of Euroskeptic members of the European Parliament jumped to 29% in 2014. That’s up from 17% in 1979.
Many of the millions of Americans voting in Tuesday’s midterm elections will have to do so while working around the demands of their jobs – hitting their polling places before work, taking an extra-long lunch break or going afterward and hoping to make it before the polls close. As they stand in line, many of them may wonder why it is that the United States votes on a Tuesday, of all days.
Most Americans like labor unions, at least in the abstract. A majority (55%) holds a favorable view of unions, versus 33% who hold an unfavorable view, according to a Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year. Despite those fairly benign views, unionization rates in the United States have dwindled in recent decades. As of 2017, just 10.7% of all wage and salary workers were union members, matching the record low set in 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
On election night 2018, besides the exit polls there will be an additional source of data on who voted and why, developed by The Associated Press, Fox News and NORC at the University of Chicago and based on a very different methodology. That means that depending on where you go for election news, you may get a somewhat different portrait of this year’s electorate.
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