Something struck me as I was wrapping up my reading of the by-elections tonight… voter turnout for the Bukit Gantang election was 75.1%. That’s a solid three quarters of registered voters. So, rigging of vote counts and other shenanigans aside, you can say what you want about democracy here but there are people who actually showed up to cast their votes. A whole bunch of them.
Low voter turnout is often the first symptom pointed to in discussions of the general social apathy towards politics. For the purpose of illustration and because it’s the only other country where I can somewhat claim knowledge about their election issues, we’ll talk about voter turnout in US elections. In non presidential election years, percentage of voter turnout is usually the high 30′s, when it’s time to elect a president that goes up to around 50-55%. Last year, it hit a high of 56.8%. (why I think people need to go out in higher numbers during the ‘off’ years is a whole nother discussion).
I couldn’t find a copy of the 2008 General Election Report from the Malaysian Elections Commission so we’ll have to go with the 2004 report that shows a 73.9% voter turnout that year. I’m dying to see the report for 2008.
All things being equal, it’s just something to think about.