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Will turnout be lower in 2012
Jesse Richman, 10/26/2012

I recently published a piece on The Monkey Cage, a political science blog on the question of whether turnout will be lower in the 2012 election.  Here is how I begin:

This year one of my favorite informal election prediction metrics has been silent: the pizza indicator.  In nearly every election year since 2006 either the college Democrats or the college Republicans post signs by the elevators in the Arts and Letters building inviting students to come to a meeting and offering free pizza.  The Party offering pizza was the one that won the election in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010.  (2007 and 2011 were lower turnout state legislative election years with little pizza to be had).  This year neither organization is offering pizza, and there has been precious little paper spent even advertising their meetings.

Pizza aside, there are more powerful suggestions that 2012 will be a low turnout election.  I focus here on the frequency of Google searches for election-related information.  Searches for “vote” should be an indicator of interest in electoral participation....

The entire post can be read here:

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/10/25/will-2012-be-a-low-turnout-election-some-evidence-from-google-search-activity/