This is the 2022 Cost of Voting Index. COVI adds up the impact of each state’s voting laws and policies, to come up with a measure of how easy or hard it is for voters to cast a counted ballot. (The chart is a little counterintuitive, in that the green bars with positive numbers are higher-cost voting states, and the orange bars with negative numbers reflect states where the cost of voting is low.). And COVI doesn’t even include things I think are important, for example, does your state enforce a 250 foot non-intimidation no-electioneering buffer zone around your polling place or is it just, as in Pennsylvania, a 10-foot ring? Is the ballot of your state clear and simple and easily filled out? I could go on.
Pundits unthinkingly refer to the total number of ballots counted as “turnout”, and assume, using this word, that voters who aren’t counted have deliberately or apathetically stayed home. It’s a word that inherently blames uncounted voters. And pollsters, when calculating candidates’ position before an election, rarely incorporate the COVI distortion on their predictions. The reality is that total votes counted will be significantly impacted by how far upstream voters have to swim, in order to spawn their dreams for our society.