That much lower!? Color me surprised.
2004 and 2008 were both viewed by the public as "crisis" election. First we had post 9/11 and the War in Iraq. Then we had the economic meltdown. I'm all for voter turnout, but I'd rather not have another clusterInks that we'd need to replicate turnout from those elections.I don't think the high turnout in 2004 and 2008 was caused by a "crisis" situation. 1980 didn't have a very high turnout, after all. What happened these two years is that a side (the GOP in 2004, Dems in 2008) did a great job at turning out their base. And, considering the situation, the still pretty good 2012 turnout is because Obama's GOTV machine still does a good job. If there is anything we can learn for the last few things, is that campaigns, when they put a little efforts in it, can and do manage to increase turnout. What happened in the 80s and 90s is that nobody bothered about turning out voters.
Hopefully politicians (dems in particular, since their base is naturally less prone to voting) will learn the lesson and keep on with GOTV efforts.