The worst voting turnout in 72 years

In the 2014 midterm elections Nov. 4, only slightly more than one-third of the nation’s eligible population voted — 36.3 percent, to be exact.

That’s the lowest turnout in more than 70 years.

We have to go back to the 1942 midterms to find a lower percentage, a year when many eligible voters were overseas, engaged in World War II.

And the shameful 2014 turnout took place in a year when $4,000,000,000 (that’s $4 billion) was spent to persuade voters to cast a ballot.

In no state was the turnout more than 60 percent. In only seven states did it exceed even 50 percent.

That leaves 43 states and the District of Columbia where less than half the eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot.

The turnout in the large population states of Texas, New York and California was 28.5 percent, 29.5 percent and 32.8 percent respectively.

Iowa was one of the seven where more than half the eligibles turned out — but just barely — at 50.6 percent.

Iowa was also one of the 10 states where turnout actually increased from 2010, the most recent previous midterm election. In that year, 49.9 percent of the eligible Iowa population voted.

Greene Countians who voted Nov. 4 equated to 54.4 percent of those eligible. In other words, thousands of Greene Countians couldn’t be bothered to fulfill the most basic duty of American citizens.

Why is that?

Several theories are promulgated.

One is that recent, more stringent requirements for voter eligibility, including picture IDs, have discouraged voting by thousands, maybe millions, of adults, particularly the poor, the non-white and the non-English-speaking.

Those are populations that traditionally vote Democratic, and predictably, the strongest proponents for picture IDs for voters are Republicans.

Another theory is that voting procedures are outdated — that Tuesday is not a convenient day of the week for casting a ballot, that early or absentee voting is cumbersome, and that publicizing voting precinct locations lags behind the changes experienced by a mobile population.

In some states controlled by Republicans, eligibility requirements have been made more demanding, such as longer residency minimums.

An additional theory is that both parties, in the states where they have control, have gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts to the extent that there are really few races in the general election, since one party dominates the number of registered voters in nearly all districts, making voting in a non-presidential year mostly meaningless (unless there’s a six-year U.S. Senate term up for election).

And, of course, without presidential candidates on the ballot, it was difficult to fire up voters who think the president is the government.

All those reasons no doubt figured into the low turnout result.

But, for me, the biggest reason for lack of turnout is that neither party presented much for people to vote FOR.

Both parties ran negative nationwide campaigns, urging Americans to vote AGAINST candidates of the other party.

So special interests exercised even more influence in 2014 than they normally do.

The system worked just fine for them — their millions of dollars spent for campaign ads, a large portion of which are legally untraceable, proved even more potent than usual.

Got a problem with that? Then vote in 2016, and talk your family and friends into doing the same.

Cut through the inane political ads and surface reporting that will be with us again in two years, figure out who will do the best job of governing, and exercise your right to choose your public servants.

We just honored America’s veterans on Nov. 11. Part of doing that is to support the American system for which they fought, and for which some of them died.