Reading through The Economist magazine’s coverage of the Iraq election, I found a passage the stuck with me.

“At first, officials from Iraq’s electoral commission claimed that as many as 72% of the 13m registered voters had cast ballots. But they later backtracked, saying that perhaps around 8m, or 60% of registered voters, had turned up, and that this was only a preliminary guess. The interim Iraqi government, led by Iyad Allawi, had set itself a target of at least a 50% turnout.”

More solid figures will emerge. Still, if the electoral commission’s later guess is correct, it would tie turnout in the last U.S. election. Though it topped other presidential elections back to 1968, our 60.7 percent in 2004 shows our malaise. Would our turnout improve if people shot at us?