The real challenge of preserving the Republic is participation.
Thomas Jefferson once offered the sentiment that an educated and engaged citizenry is required for a functional democracy. A representative republic falls under the umbrella of a democracy.
And that’s the rub. If we’re a representative republic, don’t our voices need to be heard in order for them to be represented in government? The reality is that the people who show up and do so consistently are those who end up represented. Even if they aren’t the majority of Americans.
Let’s take a look at our most recent election.
Counts are still ongoing, but as of this writing, Trump has 75.5 million votes, while Harris is at 72.4 million. All other candidates combined have 2.4 million votes. The number of registered voters in the United States typically falls between 150 and 170 million. This year was one of reasonably high turnout among registered voters. However, estimates using Census data are that there are about 244 million eligible voters in the United States.
We like to say that country is divided in half and that 50.2% of Americans chose Trump versus the 48.1% that chose Harris (with the remainder going to other candidates). But that doesn’t really tell the story. That’s just the people who voted. About 94 million eligible voters sat this one out. When you look at the numbers compared to the eligible voting population, about 31% voted for Trump, and 30% voted for Harris.
The 31% of eligible voters that showed up for Trump edged out the 30% that voted for Harris. I wouldn’t call 31% of eligible voters a “mandate,” but it doesn’t matter. They showed up, and now the people that they voted to represent them get to set the agenda.
This plays out locally, tool. Let’s look at District 33. According to the most recent Secretary of State data, there are about 24,000 registered voters in D33. Using Census data, we can estimate that the district has about 49,000 eligible voters. That means just shy of half (about 49%) of eligible voters are even registered. When you look at turnout among registered voters, with slightly more than 19,000 votes cast, it looks pretty good. However, less than half of eligible potential voters turn out.
The result? About 25% of our eligible voters chose the representation we’ll send to Boise.
I’ve spent years noodling on this issue and don’t have a solution. How do we encourage people to become engaged and educated citizens? Our system is sometimes hard to navigate: parties, primaries, misinformation, information siloes. Not to mention that it’s hard to have the energy to participate when you’re working multiple jobs, and the kids need help with homework and to get to soccer practice.
But the results are clear: until we encourage our neighbors to participate, we won’t actually have a picture of what the majority of Americans want. We’ll just have policies pushed by the loudest and most persistent minority of voters that show up.
Miranda Marquit, Master of Business Administration, is a nationally recognized financial expert, speaker, writer and podcaster. She is the vice chair of the Bonneville County Democratic Central Committee.