News Release

September 14, 2004

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Election 'evils' don't affect voter turnout
Campaign finance laws aren't necessary to increase poll numbers

WASHINGTON--With the general election seven weeks away, pundits and politicos are sure to harp on the declining voter turnout and speculate as to the reasons why more and more Americans are not exercising their voting rights. We will no doubt hear that the usual suspects, negative campaign advertising and increased campaign spending, have turned more Americans into cynics who don't trust the political system and don't bother participating in elections.

However, a report released today by the Cato Institute proves these assumptive evils to be myths. John Samples, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Representative Government, not only argues that negative ads and increased campaign budgets do not cause lower voter turnout, but he also shows that voter turnout has not been declining over the past 30 years.

Examining studies on elections from the past three decades, Samples shows that voter turnout has actually increased over the periods of time that campaign spending and negative ads have been at their highest. In fact, "if negative ads did not exist, fewer people might well turn out to vote," he writes in "Three Myths about Voter Turnout in the United States."

"If higher turnout is better for democracy than lower turnout, negative ads may make a valuable contribution to American democracy," Samples writes. He presents several studies that show that growth in spending tends to be associated with a growth in trust of government. If voters have faith in their government, they are more likely to play an active role by voting.

Finally, Samples shows that the commonly held belief that voter turnout is steadily declining is false. "Voter turnout is lower than it was in the 1960s, but almost the entire decline happened between 1968 and 1974," he writes. Since that decline, the percentage of eligible voters actually going to the polls has remained essentially flat.

It's true that the United States has a much lower voter turnout rate than much of Europe, but "government is smaller in the United States, and politics matters less to the society and its citizens," he says.

Because so many studies of political advertising and public trust in the government prove that neither have an effect on voter turnout, many of the unconstitutional measures adopted to control those factors are unnecessary, Samples concludes. "No justification exists for limiting the rights of citizens to donate to campaigns or fund political advertising as a way to promote voter turnout."

Policy Analysis no. 524