National VEP Turnout Rates 1787-Present
History break: As McDonald’s chart shows, in the early decades of the republic, midterm elections typically drew more voters than presidential contests. Back then, most states only gave voting rights to property owners, and Congress — not the presidency — tended to be the federal government’s main power center and focus of electoral campaigns. Those conditions changed in the 1820s during the Second Party System, when most states repealed property qualifications, interest in politics soared as politicians increasingly appealed to ordinary people, and the parties directed much of their energy on capturing the White House after the disputed 1824 election (which John Quincy Adams won even though Andrew Jackson received the most votes). By 1840, turnout among the white, male electorate topped 80%; the total number of votes cast that year was 60% higher than in 1836. (Blacks received the right to vote in 1870 with the Fifteenth Amendment, women in 1920 with the Nineteenth Amendment.)
National VEP Turnout Rates  | 1787-Present  | 90  | 80  | 70  | I : I  | 60  | 50  | Presidential  | 40  | Midterm  | 30  | 20  | 10  | a  | 1788 1808 1828 1848 1868 1888 1908 1928 1948 1968 1988 2008  | Year 