Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, said, "In this last election in November ... 63 percent of the American people chose not to vote ... 80 percent of young people, (and) 75 percent of low-income workers chose not to vote."
Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist, found that in the November 2014 general election, 33.2 percent of the voting-age population cast a ballot and 35.9 percent of the voting-eligible population voted. Flip the numbers, and 66.8 percent of the voting-age population, and 64.1 percent of the voting-eligible population didn't vote. The difference between those two figures is that the voting-age population includes non-citizens and felons, neither of which are able to vote, whereas the voting-eligible population excludes these groups.
The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University had an estimated turnout rate of 21.5 percent for voters age 18-29. That works out to a 78.5 percent non-participation rate - close to the 80 percent Sanders cited. Those earning less than $30,000 a year - the cutoff Sanders' office told us he was using - had a turnout rate of either 28.9 percent (if you use total population) or 34.6 percent (if you use citizens only). Flip those and you get 65 percent of citizens in that income category, or 71 percent of everyone in that income category not voting. Those are both lower than Sanders' claim of 75 percent.
Political scientists say that the census data may overstate actual voting rates, since it's based on what respondents tell researchers. There's a widespread assumption that people over-report socially admired actions like voting. Sanders went too far when he said that large majorities chose not to vote. Abby Kiesa, youth coordinator and researcher at the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. "However, the existing research about youth voting does not suggest that all of those youth actively chose not to vote. Sanders may have gotten some of his numbers wrong, but he does have a point that poorer Americans vote at lower rates than rich Americans.
"There is a class bias in voting," said Sean McElwee, a research associate with the think tank Demos. In 2010, for instance, the Census Bureau found that as 34.6 percent of citizens making below $30,000 were voting, a much higher percentage of those earning at least $150,000 voted - 59 percent. Even taking into account the caveats in the data, McElwee said, "this is a disturbing gap.
Play games with tax numbers
In making his pitch to repeal the estate tax, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) grossly inflated an out-of-date statistic about the percentage of businesses forced to liquidate because of the tax.
Thune claimed that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office "said a third of businesses who owe the death tax owe more in taxes than what their assets are worth." But Thune botched the statistic, leaving out several crucial qualifiers. The report referred to 2000, when the estate tax exemption was $675,000. It's now $5.4 million.
With the lower exemption, the CBO found that there were just 138 farms in the whole U.S. that might not have enough liquid assets to cover the amount they owed in estate taxes. The report also ran calculations if the exemption were $3.5 million. (In inflation-adjusted dollars, that comes to about $4.8 million in 2015, so it's much closer to the actual estate tax exemption today.)
Assuming that higher $3.5 million exemption, the report estimated there were 13 estates of farmers that would have insufficient liquid assets to pay the estate tax liability.
Chip Tuthill lives in Mancos. Websites used: www.factcheck.org and www.politifact.com.