Voter turnout in the U.S. 2004 election was, by most accounts, 60% of eligible adult citizens. That’s the highest it’s been in decades – but it still means 40% aren’t voting. Much higher figure, I believe, than in most democracies. That’s a huge, potentially powerful block that neither party has yet been able to recruit. And any party that did recruit them would have a virtual lock on power.
Who are these nonvoters? What are their demographic characteristics – social class, income level, education, cultural background, religion, ethnicity, region, etc.?
Why don’t they vote? Stupidity? Apathy? Disaffection? Lack of faith in the system? Or is it simply that neither party offers them anything they can get excited about?
What political agenda, if any, would they be most likely to vote for? If you wanted their vote, what would you offer them?
A small part of that 40% has to do with personal situations near election day – those people aren’t “non-voters”. Such as a death in the family, illness, the car breaks down etc.
The non-voters don’t vote for reasons of their own. Who knows, but trying to get them to vote is like pulling teeth.
Voting Day: 24 hours continuous. Polls open at 8 a.m. local time on Tuesday, close at 8 a.m. local time Wednesday, for example.
Non-partisan voting guide (based on public statements and voting records) mailed to every household and available for free in post offices and libraries.
Non-partisan public issues survey of candidates. Results could be incorporated into the aforementioned guide or released separately. Refusal to participate by candidates would be noted in the results.
Why do you want them to vote if they don’t want to? There is a right not to vote also. I would guess that a large percentage of those people don’t know enough or don’t care enough to cast an intelligent vote. I think that it is more important to the for them to self-select not to vote if they are illinformed or apathetic. Otherwise, you might just end up with disproportionate votes for the best looking candidate or the one with the coolest name rather than on issue. These people can always elect to vote when they are ready. It is not as though that 40% is always the same people each time that we must somehow find and “save”.
I think a lot of people just don’t like politics. Many others don’t feel it is that important compared to the other things in their lives.
Sure it’s important to vote, but I’m tired of hearing all this vote or die, know the issues stuff. Can’t people just live their lives without being castigated for not wanting to vote?
Anyone who is not sufficiently interested to vote is unlikely to be sufficiently interested to actually understand the issues. I would not put deliberate obstructions in their way, but I see no reason to make it so easy that we increase the number of demagogue-inspired voters by any hefty percentage. It really is a shame that so few citizens choose to participate in their own government at the minimal level, but I really do not want to see the uninformed or uneducated padding the vote counts of whoever has the best propaganda machine.
If they cannot be persuaded to vote out of a sense of civic duty, then we are better off without their ballots. (As to causes: while I am not sure that the U.S. ever had a really outstanding record of voter participation, I would guess that the lies and dirty tricks surrounding the Watergate scandal and the prosecution of the Viet Nam war injected a level of cynical resignation into the country from which we have not yet recovered.)
Actually, Oregon’s turnout jumped when they went to all absentee balloting. It’s even high during off years and special elections. Not 100%, but people do seem to be more willing to dump an envelope in the mailbox than to go to the polling place.
I don’t get the whole “understand the issues” thing. I doubt most people who vote have a strong understanding of any issues. Sure they may know soundbites, but do they really understand the tax code, soc. sec., Iraq. The vast majority of people have very little understanding of these issues. They vote for whomever has the most compelling soundbites. At its core, most of these people vote based on emotion. Thats why its called politics. If the guy with the best ideas won everytime, we wouldn’t have so many scumbags in office (nor would we have so many old white men). To pretend that the level of understanding varies greatly between those who vote and those who don’t is faulty.
Voting is ridiculously easy. If you’re too lazy to vote, we’re probably better off without your vote. Otherwaise, I give a strong second to everything **tomndebb **said.
There is no question that a census of voters will include many, many people who simply follow the party line (whether it is the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, or the last beer bash). It would be nice, in an ideal world, to be able to flush out those who have not actually attempted to understand the issues on which they are following the instructions of their local ward leader, preacher, or radio talking head. Unfortunately, any attempt to identify “informed” citizens vs “sheep” will fail, as it requires fallible humans to evaluate the knowledge and intentions of other fallible humans. Thus, anyone who has taken enough initiative to present themselves at the polls is, (providing there is no other legal barrier), permitted to vote. However, regardless how many uneducated followers may choose to vote, they have at least taken sufficient interest to actually listen to whatever leader they stumbled into following. Those who do not choose to vote have not even paid that insufficient bit of attention to realize that certain candidates or issues are important.
I do not suggest that we attempt to weed out the “incompetent” voters; I merely suggest that it is not in the best interests of the nation to increase the numbner of them who actually cast ballots. There are no serious impediments to voting, today. Attempting to coerce or cajole people who really do not care into voting is simply counterproductive to the concept of an informed citizenry deciding their own future.
You’re missing the point. It’s not that old white men are bad, it’s that nonold people, nonwhite people and nonmale people are as good, while representing different points of view and different life experiences from old white men.
I am unaware of any laws barring nonold nonwhite nonmale peoplefrom running for office, or of any laws preventing the electorate from voting for them. Is the claim here that if more minorities ran, more of that 40% would vote?
I am not convinced that low turnout is a sign of Bad Things about the electorate. It could well be that many people are reasonably happy with how things are going and don’t really care who is elected. In this view, low turnout is a sign of contentment, not disenchantment.
If there is an issue or person that people really care about on the ballot, turnout goes through the roof, as when David Duke ran for governor. People turned out in droves to vote against him.
This is at least as plausible an explanation as " Stupidity? Apathy? Disaffection? [or] Lack of faith in the system."