Quality of Life—Community Engagement
Indicator: Voter turnout rates by election cycle, percent of eligible voters- Source: Maryland State Board of Elections
- Years included: 2000-2020
We selected this indicator as a proxy for civic engagement because those who turn out to vote are taking the time to exercise this basic right and duty of citizenship and may be more inclined to be engaged in other ways. This is especially true for the midterm elections, which see lower overall turnout and therefore draw voters who are often more involved. As such, we decided that it is important acknowledge the significant differences between presidential and midterm election years by including the data on both cycles to allow us to compare apples to apples (i.e., to look at rates in equivalent election years) and look at both cycles in the same dataset, in order to provide important context about engagement levels in gubernatorial/midterm election years versus presidential election years.
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