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Illinois is first in voter accessibility policies, below average in participation

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Illinois

* From WalletHub…

Hi Rich,

With less than a week until Election Day and nearly four in 10 voters in states with no voter-ID requirements falsely believing they must present identification in order to vote, the personal-finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2016’s Most & Least Politically Engaged States.

In order to determine where Americans are most involved in politics, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across seven key indicators of political engagement. They range from “percentage of registered voters in the 2012 presidential election” to “total political contributions per adult population.”

Political Engagement in Illinois (1=Most; 25=Avg.)

28th – % of Registered Voters in 2012 Presidential Election
34th – % of Electorate Who Voted in 2014 Midterm Elections
34th – % of Electorate Who Voted in 2012 Presidential Election
23rd – Change in % of Electorate Who Actually Voted in 2012 Elections vs. 2008 Elections
11th – Total Political Contributions per Adult Population
9th – Civic Education Engagement
1st – Voter Accessibility Policies

For the full report, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/most-least-politically-engaged-states/7782/

Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like to schedule a phone, Skype or in-studio interview with one of our experts. Full data sets for specific states and the District are also available upon request.

Best,
Diana Popa
Communications Manager, WalletHub

Methodology is here. According to Popa, voter accessibility is defined by laws governing things like early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, online voter registration and same-day registration.

In addition, Illinois ranked 37th for political engagement by voter aged 18-24, and 26th for political engagement by the elderly.

And we may rank high in average contributions per adult because of a few special folks.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Nov 1, 16 @ 9:23 am

Comments

So we make it easy to vote and our participation is average at best. My broken record is the key to voter participation is ballot access. If you control what is on the ballot, there is less reason to vote.

Comment by jeffinginchicago Tuesday, Nov 1, 16 @ 9:52 am
I cannot believe there’s only one comment on this post.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Nov 1, 16 @ 1:41 pm
Eight swing states rank higher than Illinois in overall score, including Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio. No surprise there, given how many more resources are spent in swing states every four years.

An interesting finding is the correlation between a state’s tas fairness and political engagement.

Comment by anon Tuesday, Nov 1, 16 @ 2:21 pm
“I cannot believe there’s only one comment on this post.”

My thought was that if we’re first in vote accessibility, then there is little reason for so few people to participate in our elections.

Then I got depressed.

– MrJM

Comment by @MisterJayEm Tuesday, Nov 1, 16 @ 6:11 pm