A ton of people didn't vote because they couldn't get time off from work You've heard the news by now that turnout in the 2014 midterms was the lowest in any election since 1942, when voters were busy with, you know, other stuff. In short, only 36 percent of the voting-age population bothered to cast a ballot last week. A large proportion of them simply aren't registered to vote at all. But past numbers suggest upwards of 20 percent of Americans adults were registered to vote, but couldn't be bothered to - what's their excuse? A new Pew Research Center report has some answers. They tracked down 181 registered voters who said they did not vote this year and asked them their reasons for doing so. While it's a smallish sample and we should be cautious about interpreting it too broadly, respondents gave some illuminating answers. A full two-thirds said they simply didn't have enough time to vote. More than half of this group - 35 percent of the total - said that scheduling conflicts with work or school kept them from getting to the polls last Tuesday. Another 34 percent of the total said they were simply too busy, or that they were sick, out of town, or forgot about election day. Read the rest of this post on Wonkblog.