If history is any indication, a lot of voting-age people will stay home Nov. 8 when the incendiary presidential campaign finally, mercifully, ends. A surprising number of those stay-at-homes promises to be physicians.
Yes, the same professionals who admonish us to get an annual flu shot vote at rates 9 percent lower than the general population and 22 percent lower than lawyers, according to the latest available information. The most recent study, using data from the 1996 and 2002 elections, also revealed physicians’ voting habits haven’t changed much since the 1970s.
An online article in the Annals of Internal Medicine co-authored by physicians Katrina Armstrong and David Grande of the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, published Oct. 31, recommended all physicians follow our nation’s prescribed voting cycles — including the quadrennial presidential elections.
“Physicians should try to make participation in the political process and public debates part of our professional lives,” Dr. Grande told Medscape Medical News. “Elections and decisions by policymakers have a profound influence on the system physicians practice in and the opportunities patients have to access and afford care.”
In the spirt of this election: Excuses are for losers! But the authors did point out that physicians are so engaged in their professional duties that they place lower social value on voting. They also work long hours and some have overnight call. And maybe they simply don’t care about politics.
If that’s the case, maybe they’re unapologetically apathetic like so many other eligible American voters. The United States ranks 31st of 35 in voter turnout among democratic nations that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to the Pew Research Center.
Only 53 percent of eligible voters actually cast ballots in the 2012 presidential election, says Pew. The numbers: 129 million of 241 million eligibles voted that year. Presidential elections typically attract more voters — the Trump-Clinton hoedown, driven by the campaign’s profound negativity and disdain for both candidates, is expected to pile up some huge numbers — than the more ho-hum non-presidential races and primaries.
Now compared to recent elections around the world, with Belgium’s 87 percent participation rate the highest, ahead of Turkey (84 percent and Sweden (82 percent). Compulsory voting in Belgium and Turkey obviously contributed to the high turnout in those countries, but the United States by any measure remains a laggard. Only 36 percent of registered voters cast ballots in 2014, according to the United States Election Project, the lowest turnout in the general election since 1942.
At least as many non-voters had an acceptable excuse back in ’42: They were busy defending the country in World War II.
Visit MyHHCdocs.com to find a doctor today, and then remind him or her to vote. 😉