How easily can you vote? That depends on many things, including whether you live in a rural or urban area. "Researchers from the Population Health Institute say that lack of access to infrastructure like broadband, recreation facilities, and public libraries hurts voter turnout in rural places," reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. "The lowest voter turnout in the U.S. is in rural counties and small metropolitan areas, according to new data from County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, an annual report published by the Population Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin."

The overall difference is small: 65 percent rural turnout compared to 67 percent overall, but suburbs of major metropolitan areas averaged 71 percent, and many local variations are greater.

"The program's goal is to create awareness about the many different factors that can influence community health. One of those indicators is voter turnout, calculated as a percentage of voting-age residents who cast a ballot," Melotte writes. "In 2023, the report focused on the connections between infrastructure, civic participation (like voting), and community health. Experts say that communities with better infrastructure have higher scores on measures of public health and higher rates of voter turnout."

Read the full article about rural voting by Heather Close at The Rural Blog.