Excerpts:
Americans may turn out in record numbers this election.
But breaking the U.S. record would still leave us far from the top compared to the world’s other democracies.
As it stands now, we’re not even particularly close when it comes to turnout.
In the last presidential election, a bit more than 55 percent of the voting-age population cast a ballot, well below the global leaders Belgium, Sweden, and Denmark – all around 85 percent.
The participation rates have long caught the interest of public officials – with the middling turnout pinned on the often cumbersome nature of voting, a lack of civic classes in the school curriculum, and even apathy.
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That is the theory in Los Angeles, where voting officials have spent the last decade revamping the way elections are done.