Voter turnout (%VAP) swing maps

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Maps showing change in turnout by percent of voting age population.

increase: green
decrease: yellow
shades show increase or decrease by 10% shade for every 1% (ex. 4.5% increase = >40% shade)
no change (<.1%) - coral
< 3% - 20% shade
> 9% - 90% shade              
data missing - gray

for reference: 1960 %VAP=63.1


1964 (changes from 1960)  %VAP=61.9 (-1.2)
1st DC vote for president
Taxes required for federal elections banned by 24th amendment, ratified Jan 1964, ending such taxes in VA, AL, TX, AR, MS.  

1968  %VAP= 60.8 (-1.1)
Voting Rights Act passed Aug 6 1965

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

increase: green
decrease: yellow
shades show increase or decrease by 10% shade for every 1% (ex. 4.5% increase = >40% shade)
no change (<.1%) - coral
< 3% - 20% shade
> 9% - 90% shade               
data missing - gray

1972  %VAP 55.2 (-5.6)
XXVI amendment adopted July 1 1971, voting age lowered to 18

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Very cool, keep up the good work.

Thanks!

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Great example of the Southernization of American politics. 

What we are seeing in the maps I've posted so far represent 1) a general decline in voter participation and 2) the expansion of the franchise in the South.  In 1972, the South declines even greater than the rest of the nation due to the unsuitability of McGovern to most white Democrats there. This is reversed some in 1976. The effect is a relative narrowing of the difference in %VAP between the low-voting South and the high-voting North, which was huge up until the last third of the twentieth century.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

1976 %VAP = 53.5 (-1.7)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

1980 %VAP = 52.6% (-.9)

this map is just so random

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

1984  %VAP = 53.1 (+.5)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

1980 %VAP = 52.6% (-.9)

this map is just so random

I assume that Idaho and Alaska had increased turnout due to conservative discontent with their Democratic senators who were too liberal for their states.

Very likely. Seeing the changes between 1980 and 1984 I realized state elections probably explain a lot of the variation from one election to the next.