There are some places in the world were 99 percent of the people vote in every election and 99.9 percent of them, their governments assure us, vote for the Glorious Leader For Life. Now that’s a landslide!

In this country the turnout isn’t that high. Especially in non-presidential election years. And in many of our elections, where an individual wins by what the media says is a “landslide” the vote is often very, very close.

Indeed, under our electoral system, a candidate can win the popular vote and still lose the election. Put another way, someone can get less votes and still be the winner. And it has happened before. You can look it up!

But imagine if we had an bona fide 88 percent voter turnout. That is if 88 of every 100 eligible voters actually voted. The prospect of that would delight some people and horrify others. Good or bad, it would overwhelm most polling places which can barely handle a 50 percent turnout.

Recently, a very large federal agency had a quiz on its in-house webpage. It asked employees if they planned to vote, planned not to vote or didn’t know if they would vote in the upcoming election. Obviously it didn’t tell them to vote, or not to vote. Nor did it ask who they would vote for. That would be against the law.

In response, 88 percent said they planned to vote, 5 percent said they were undecided and 7 percent said they had already made up their minds not to vote for anybody. The 88 percent figure, I suspect, would not be unusual in any federal agency or postal facility.

What stunned one employee, who contacted me, is the 12 percent who either aren’t going to vote or have not decided if they will or not. He noted that federal and postal workers, and military personnel, are the only people who will be voting on their next CEO (the President), for their board of directors (the Congress) and their Commander-in-Chief (the President).

He passed along a special get-out-and-vote issue of the Denver Chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union newsletter. Although the union endorsed a candidate long ago, the newsletter doesn’t tell people how to vote. But it does tell them why they, as feds, should vote, especially in the congressional races. Because Congress has the final word on:

• Federal pay raises…
• Whether people will remain under the GS system or be put into a new merit pay banding program…
• How much the government continues to contribute to employee health plan premiums…
• Whether to balance the budget with a hiring or pay freeze…etc.

You get the idea!

Feds, as we have pointed out before, represent a large portion of the voting age population is most of the states the media rates as battleground or “must win” states. Places like Missouri (37,100 nonpostal feds), Virginia (128,000), North Carolina (38,000), Pennsylvania (64,000).

That’s a lot of well-educated, highly trained, well-paid people who are old enough to vote, likely are registered and are likely to vote. That’s a margin of victory in many states. To see the election day clout of the federal workforce in your state, click here.

Nearly Useless Factoid

There are about 250 Americans on the “No Fly” list.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com

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