Rain clouds can't keep voters away
Despite light rain throughout Virginia, voters turned out in record numbers Tuesday.
Traditionally, bad weather is good news for Republicans. A study published in the June 2007 edition of the Journal of Politics found that rain on Election Day favors the Republican Party. The 2005 study examined the effect of weather on voter turnout in 14 U.S. presidential elections, finding that Democrats were less likely to vote in rainy weather.
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| Lexington voters brave the rain to vote on Election Day. (LARA JORDAN/ Rockbridge Report) |
One explanation is that Democratic voters are often poorer than Republicans and may not have cars to drive to the polls. Also, Democrats are more likely to be “peripheral voters,” people less keenly interested in politics.
But those explanations did not seem to hold Tuesday, in an election with the first major-party African American nominee leading the Democratic Party’s ticket.
According to the Associated Press, that historic ticket caused blacks and young people, who typically vote Democratic, to turn out in unprecedented numbers.
Still, the rain caused some frustration at the polls statewide.
In Richmond, an elections official said a scanning machine malfunctioned as a result of voters filling out their ballots with wet hands and clothes.
But of eight so-called swing states – those whose vote was considered key in determining the election’s outcome – only three – Virginia, North Carolina and Montana – saw rain.
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