Great New Interactive Feature from Pew: The Elections Performance Index

August 24, 2016

2016 Election

The Pew Charitable Trusts have just published a new Elections Performance Index, an interactive feature with data from “the first comprehensive assessment of election administration in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.”

Using indicators for ballot access and ease of voting like voter turnout, registration rate, registration or absentee ballot problems, and voting wait time, they’ve assigned each state a percentage score for its election administration for every federal election from 2008 to 2014. In the 2014 election, the state with the best score was was North Dakota, with 84%; the bottom-scoring state was Alabama, with 49%.

In their interactive data feature, you can view each state’s scores on all of the individual indicators, a ranked list of all the states, or compare states’ scores from election to election. It’s a great tool to see how voters in many states still face significant challenges in order to raise their voice in our democracy.

How does your state stack up in Pew’s rankings? Find out here.

What We're Reading

U.S. Census: Unmarried and Single Americans Week

To commemorate Unmarried and Single Americans Week (September 17-23), the U.S. Census has produced a “Facts for Features” profile (PDF) of 2016 census data about unmarried Americans. Here are some of the highlights:

There are 110.6 unmarried people 18 or older in America, making up 45.2% of the U.S. adult population.
35.4 million Americans lived alone in 2016, representing 28.1% of all US households — up from 17.1% in 1970.
Despite unmarried people being 45.2% of the U.S. adult population, only 39.6% of voters in the 2016 presidential election were unmarried.

Read the rest of the U.S. Census Bureau’s “Facts for Features” profile (PDF) on unmarried Americans.

Millennials to pass baby boomers as largest voter-eligible age group, and what it means

For the first time, millennials next year will pass baby boomers as the largest generation of Americans eligible to vote.

By Ronald Brownstein, CNN Senior Political Analyst

July 25, 2017

(CNN)In 2018, the American electorate will cross a historic threshold that could reshape the political balance of power-or leave Democrats fuming in frustration at continued Republican dominance of Washington.

For the first time, millennials next year will pass baby boomers as the largest generation of Americans eligible to vote, according to the well-respected demographic forecasts from the States of Change project at the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy group. That transition will end a remarkable four decades of dominance for the baby boomers, who have been the largest generation of eligible voters since 1978, when they surpassed what’s been popularly referred to as the Greatest Generation (or G.I. Generation) raised during the Depression. Read more here.

How Votes Have Shifted: Changes in Partisan Performance 2000-2016

Demographic change is slowly, but inevitably, moving Western states to the left.

By Reid Wilson

The 11th story in The Hill’s Changing America series, in which they investigate the demographic and economic trends shaping the nation’s politics. Nevada’s booming growth underscores the two trends working most in Democrats’ favor: the rising power of cities that are acting more reliably liberal, and the expanding influence of Hispanic-Americans who are becoming the nation’s largest minority community. Read more here.

Great New Interactive Feature from Pew: The Elections Performance Index

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