" The rate of a voter turnout depends whether it is calculated by proportion of the registered voters who went to election, or what percentage of the voting-age population participated in voting (Wilson, 1992). Primarily, troublesome regulations for registration are one of the barriers for people to vote, for instance: residency length requirements, complex applications, enlisting ahead of a time, etc. So, making the registration procedure easier to accomplish, for example letting citizens to register on the day of election, will surely increase the percentage of voters. .
Even if a voting cherished by Americans as the essential principle of democracy, disappointingly it is or not, participation of citizens of the United States in the elections has been declining over time. It went down to barely 50 percent during the last two decades in presidential elections, comparing to average 80 percent in the late 1800s. And the rates in national and local elections are even worse than that (Light 1997). There is a viewpoint that at that time period voting frauds were pretty frequent. The political parties, not the government, printed the ballots, they often cast in public, not private; there were few serious efforts to decide who was eligible to vote, and the rules oriented to control were easily evaded (Wilson, 1992). As a result of machinations the number of votes were often larger than the number of those who were eligible to vote. For example, in 1888 in West Virginia the number of persons who were cast in presidential elections was mysteriously bigger than officially claimed one. It was 108 percent of a "voter turnout." Nevertheless, a lot of scholars believe that, even accurately measured, turnout probably did decline after 1890s, because starting from that time strict voter-registration procedures came into law (Wilson, 1992). However, I do not think it was the main reason why people slowed down in voting so enthusiastically.
