Has anyone ever tried to measure election results as a percentage of eligible voters ?
US data to produce such data is very confuse, because there are so many people who are not eligible, such as non-citizens, prisoners etc.
But IŽll try and calculate it going back to 1980, using the total population of each year, subtract the 17 years and younger folks and the non-citizens.
Subtracting prison population would be complicated because there is insufficent data from 1980-2008. But those prisoners missing are more or less substituted by the Americans voting abroad anyway.
A few statistics to measure non-citizens:
1980 Census: 3.1%
1990 Census: 4.7%
2000 Census: 6.6%
2008 (ACS): 7.1%
(I guess the real number of non-citizens will be closer to 8-9%, but let's wait for the 2010 Census)
http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/tab11.htmlhttp://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/c2kprof00-us.pdfhttp://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=ACS&_submenuId=&_lang=en&_ds_name=ACS_2008_1YR_G00_&ts=Here is what you get:
2008: 18+ folks: 231 Mio. (-7.1% non-citizens) = 214.6 Mio. voters
2004: 18+ folks: 221 Mio. (-6.9% non-citizens) = 205.8 Mio. voters
2000: 18+ folks: 211 Mio. (-6.6% non-citizens) = 197.1 Mio. voters
1996: 18+ folks: 200 Mio. (-5.8% non-citizens) = 188.4 Mio. voters
1992: 18+ folks: 191 Mio. (-5.1% non-citizens) = 181.3 Mio. voters
1988: 18+ folks: 182 Mio. (-4.3% non-citizens) = 174.2 Mio. voters
1984: 18+ folks: 174 Mio. (-3.7% non-citizens) = 167.6 Mio. voters
1980: 18+ folks: 167 Mio. (-3.1% non-citizens) = 161.8 Mio. voters
Based on these numbers you have the following results for each winner:
2008: Obama => 32.4%
2004: Bush => 30.2%
2000: Gore => 25.9%
1996: Clinton => 25.2%
1992: Clinton => 24.8%
1988: Bush => 28.1%
1984: Reagan => 32.5%
1980: Reagan => 27.1%
If the non-citizen population turns out to be more than 8% on Census Day 2010, Obama could even pass Reagan`s result in his 1984 landslide when measured as a percentage of total eligible US voters ...
