Less Than Half of Doctors are Registered to Vote
The Claim
Only half of doctors are registered to vote in the United States.
News posted on
Emerging story
As election day nears in the U.S., it appears from social media that at least half of doctors do not vote.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar has discovered that a recent University of Texas Southwestern study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed only half of practicing physicians are registered to vote.
To make their conclusions, researchers investigated physician voter participation, voter registration, and voter turnout from 2006 through 2018 in California, New York, and Texas, which are states with the largest number of physicians. They found physician voter participation and registration were lower than the general population for all elections from 2006 through 2018.
Half of eligible physicians were not registered to vote, even though wealthier, more educated voters generally have at least 50% higher registration rates.
When researchers from UT Southwestern looked into why physicians are less likely to vote than the general population, time was the most common cited barrier.
Physicians not voting appears to be nothing new. Research from over 20 years ago showed doctors were also less likely back then to vote compared to the general population and other professionals such as lawyers.
