Because guys just can't be bothered. Just kidding! Sort of. U.S. women didn't get the right to vote until 1920 and for a long time trailed male voters in participation rates. Well, ladies, times have changed, and the men need our help. According to Newsweek:
Over the last 40 years, some 16 million men‚ a population roughly the size of Michigan and Indiana combined‚ have stopped pulling the lever. That's a hole five times the size of George W. Bush's margin of victory in 2004.Since 1964, when a record 72 percent of voting-age men and 67 percent of voting-age women pulled the lever for president, participation rates have tumbled for both sexes‚ but far more steeply for men. By 1980, civics-class dropouts had flipped the gender gap. And this November, men are again the odds-on favorites to no-show at the polls.
Men's shorter life expectancy is one of the factors cited for this state affairs. There are simply more women and, of course, older voters are also more active than the rest. Women are also more educated‚ and the educated like filling out blue books, ballots and other frustrating papers. Some of the wealthy men are apparently too overworked to fulfill this patriotic duty. Men also make up the vast majority of people in prison, where there is no right to vote. And last but not least:
The remaining 12 million men‚ the nonfelons‚ who still aren't voting at the rate their fathers did might just be stubborn. "Men tend to view voting as a choice," says Lyn Ragsdale, a political scientist at Rice University who is working on a book about nonvoters. Fortunately there is hope for the nonvoting male: women. In recent years, women have upended the conventional wisdom that they follow their husbands on Election Day‚ an idea once so entrenched that in the 1930s poll-master George Gallup didn't even bother canvassing women on their political choices. (He once remarked: "How will women vote on Election Day? Just as exactly as they were told the night before.") Today, married men are not only more likely to vote than their single counterparts, but, according to sociologist Michael Kimmel, they are likely to be swayed by their wife's choice at the voting booth. Smart move.
Annoyingly, the author of this interesting article uses methodological disputes as an excuse not to compare differences between male and female electoral participation at all. The numbers are quite striking. According to U.S. Bureau of the Census, in 2004, 60.1 percent of women (67.3 million) made it to the polls compared to 56.3 percent of men (58.5 million).
Obama recently closed in on McCain's advantage with male voters and is continuing to increase his sizable lead among women. According to Gallup, Obama now leads among male voters 49 percent to McCain's 44 percent. Women prefer Obama 53 percent to McCain's 39 percent. I must say that I more mistrustful of polls this election season, because I think that race is going to be a huge issue. A friend of mine, who is in the polling business, assures me that fears about the repeat of the "Bradley effect" have been exaggerated in the media. I hope that she is right but won't believe it until I see it.
Anyways, ladies of all parties, let's get the men off their bottoms and off to the polls!
