In the U.S. the percentage of the voting age population that actually casts a ballot is dismally low, in comparison to other developed nations. It hasn't broken 60% in a presidential election since 1968 and hasn't been above 40% in a midterm election since 1970. This year will be no better.

Some countries achieve turnouts of 80-90% by making voting compulsory. U.S. "swing states" appear to have historically higher turnout. Minnesota touts it's same-day registration, and Oregon it's vote-by-mail program. In the wake of hurricane Sandy parts of New Jersey will be able to vote by email/fax, making it easier for them to vote.

What can we do to get our national voter turnout up to 75-85%?

In the NY Times @markoff wrote about how social networks can be used to increase voter turnout by users broadcasting that they've voted themselves. But does this have the potential for a large scale impact?

On the pragmatic front:
* make election day a holiday. That will make it much easier for more people vote, in addition to making more people available to volunteer at the polls. Stores would have one more holiday sale to encourage us to buy stuff we don't really need.

On the pie-in-the-sky front:
* double or triple the size of Congress. This almost certainly seems counter-intuitive, but the ridiculous congressional districts that currently exist are due in part to the 700K voters per representative. 350K voters per representative or 175K voters per representative would shrink congressional districts (and campaign costs) accordingly--perhaps to the point where public financing of campaigns might become a realistic option.

@Scott
How do you see adding more members to the House of Representatives increasing voter turnout? Is it just the psychology of candidates needing fewer votes to get elected would mean each individual's vote would have a bigger impact?

@Nate
It is not merely the psychology, though that is important. It is about Congress actually being representative again. It is about smaller districts increasing accountability. Smaller districts that are easier to campaign in make it easier for more candidates to run--possibly even third (or fourth) parties. As a Marylander unaffiliated with any party, I would love to be in a smaller district with more viable candidates to choose from in each election.

So in your opinion, a smaller district with more representative candidates for the House would convince a non-voter to say, "I think I'm going to go cast a ballot this year"?

Should we have nationwide vote-by-mail as the default method of casting ballots?