Multiple readers have asked about voter turnout in the midterm election. South Dakota's unofficial turnout Tuesday was 54.17%, the lowest for any general election in the last 22 years.
The average turnout for midterm elections since 1994, not counting this year, was 66.70%. Our unenthusiastic showing Tuesday drops that midterm average three points to 64.61%
This year's dropoff from the immediately preceding Presidential election was the largest in the last 20 years, and that's on top off (or on bottom of?) a below-average turnout in 2012.
| Year | Turnout | diff |
| 1992 | 75.01% | |
| 1994 | 73.65% | -1.36% |
| 1996 | 70.40% | -3.26% |
| 1998 | 58.81% | -11.59% |
| 2000 | 68.38% | 9.57% |
| 2002 | 71.52% | 3.14% |
| 2004 | 78.63% | 7.11% |
| 2006 | 67.26% | -11.37% |
| 2008 | 73.04% | 5.78% |
| 2010 | 62.27% | -10.77% |
| 2012 | 69.72% | 7.45% |
| 2014 | 54.17% | -15.56% |
Voter turnout for midterms in South Dakota has usually been more than ten percentage points less than turnout in Presidential elections. That fits the normal double-digit dropoff seen nationally. South Dakota's average midterm dropoff is 7.92%, but that number is skewed by two anomalously busy midterm elections, 1994 and 2002, when voter turnout increased over the last election. What set those two years apart? Bill Janklow. In 1994, Janklow made his gubernatorial comeback. In 2002, Janklow ran for Congress. Janklow was on the ballot in 1998, but that was just to keep his seat against a polite challenge from Democrat Bernie Hunhoff.
Notice also that the average pickup from midterm to next Presidential election is only 5.33%. We don't get back all the voters who slip away at midterm.
On last night's Thinking Unenslaved podcast with Jered Dawnne, I observed that corporations and other anti-democratic forces count declining voter turnout. You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but you can fool some of the people some of the time. That adage carries some obvious math: the more of us who vote, the harder it is for certain candidates and PACs and big-money influencers to get their way by appealing to small segments of the population with fear, falsehoods, and focus-grouped images and slogans. The more of us who vote, the more likely it is we will get candidates who serve the general welfare over special interests.
Higher voter turnout doesn't guarantee we won't get corrupt Senators like Mike Rounds, but it's one good bulwark against bad leadership. Democracy is counting on us; let's bounce that turnout back up in 2016.