Report: Colorado ranks among most politically engaged states
Colorado is one of the most politically engaged states, according to a new ranking that included such factors as voter turnout, voting accessibility and participation levels in local groups or organizations.
“Among developed nations, the U.S. is rank 26 of 35 when it comes to voter turnout,” wrote WalletHub, the personal finance company that performed the analysis. “That’s no surprise, considering most states don’t emphasize civic education in their schools. Large proportions of the public fail even simple knowledge tests such as knowing whether one’s state requires identification in order to vote.”
Colorado had high voter turnout in the 2016 presidential election and has one of the most highly-educated populations. WalletHub noted that income, which correlates with education, also is a factor in voter participation. People whose family incomes exceeded $150,000 voted at nearly twice the rate as those with incomes less than $10,000.
The report gave Colorado a third-place ranking in political engagement, behind Maine and Washington. Hawaii, which historically has had abysmal levels of voter turnout, ranked last.
“One other factor to point out is that elections are administered by the individual states. So how easy it is to vote varies from place to place according to their specific laws and procedures (how easy it is to register, whether one needs a reason to be able to vote by mail, etc.),” said Christina Bambrick, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame.