ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates early claims about the importance of turnout to the 2012 election outcome. It offers some tentative answers, based on historical turnout data, the aggregate turnout data for 2008 and 2012, and exit poll data from 2008 and 2012. These data sources are evaluated in the context of theories of voter turnout in order to strengthen our substantive inferences regarding turnout in the 2012 presidential election. The chapter discusses turnout levels in the United States (US) from a pre-twentieth-century perspective. It presents data on aggregate turnout in US presidential elections between 1972 and 2008. The chapter considers two potentially important and distinctive political features of the 2012 contest that may have influenced voter turnout by affecting the costs of voting. These features include changes in election laws governing voter registration and voting as well as changes in election laws governing independent campaign expenditures.
