The Federal Election Commission maintains data showing the voting age population, the number of registered voters, and the turnout for federal elections. The following table shows the national voter turnout as a percentage of the voting age population from 1972 to 1996 (The Wall Street Journal Almanac, 1998).

Voter Turnout
Year	% Turnout	Year	% Turnout
1972	55	1986	36
1974	38	1988	50
1976	54	1990	37
1978	37	1992	55
1980	53	1994	39
1982	40	1996	49
1984	53

Part (a): Use exponential smoothing to forecast this time series. Consider smoothing constants of a = 0.1 and 0.2. What is the forecast of the percentage of turnout in 1998? Part (b): Use the mean absolute deviation (MAD) to determine which smoothing constant provides the best forecast of voter turnout.