Elections – The Public Good Index

Date: 26 Feb 2018 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Percent of population making under $50,000 in 2014: 48 percent.

Percent of those voting making under $50,000: 36 percent.

Percent of population making over $100,000: 22 percent.

Percent of those voting making over $100,000: 30 percent.

Percent making over $150,000 who voted in 2012: 80 percent.

Percent making less than $10,000 who voted in 2012: 47 percent.

Split among likely voters in 2012 between Obama and Romney: 47-47.

Split among non-voters in 2012 between Obama and Romney: 59-24.

Source: The Income Gap at the Polls, Politico, 2015.

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Change in U.S. jail and prison population 1976-2016: +500 percent.

Number of felons barred from voting because of state disenfranchisement laws in 1960: 1.7 million.

In 1976: 1.17 million.

In 2016: 6.1 million.

Share of those disenfranchised who have completed their sentences: 50 percent.

 

Source: 6 Million Lost Voters: State-Level Estimates of Felony Disenfranchisement, Sentencing Project, 2016.

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Percentage of felons and ex felons that would have voted for Democratic candidates in 14 of the 15 Senate elections between 1972 and 2002: 70 percent.

 

Source: Democratic Contraction? Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, Uggen and Manza, 2002.

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Winning margin by Trump in Florida in 2016: 113,000.

Number of blacks citizens disenfranchised in Florida: 400,000.

Percent of blacks voting for Clinton in 2016 nationwide: 90 percent.

Sources:

Florida Presidential Race Results: Donald J. Trump Wins, New York Times, 2017.

Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2016, US Census Bureau, 2017.

Number of People by State Who Cannot Vote Due to a Felony Conviction, ProCon.org, 2016.

Here’s a breakdown of how African-Americans voted in the 2016 election, Mic., 2016.

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David Morris

David Morris is co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and currently ILSR's distinguished fellow. His five non-fiction books range from an analysis of Chilean development to the future of electric power to the transformation of cities and neighborhoods.  For 14 years he was a regular columnist for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press. His essays on public policy have appeared in the New York TimesWall Street Journal, Washington PostSalonAlternetCommon Dreams, and the Huffington Post.