What are the NON voters (majority as always) trying to tell us?

[JackRiddler]

The biggest party in this as in every election was of the NON voters.

Interestingly, the drop-off among Democrats (i.e., who voted in 2002 but did not vote this time) was greater than among Republicans.

Everyone talks about how to win the voter.

What about winning the non-voter?

This is a great dark area of American politics, so I won't give a theory but ask for yours:

Who are the non-voters?

Why are they not voting?

How can you reach them?

Do you even want to reach them?

[Cha]

1. Are there just so many of them that have the ultimate excuse on

why they did Not vote that particular day? i.e. ..

1)working all day & night.

2) too sick to get to the polls

3)unexpected emergency

4) the "why bother" crowd

5) and I guess there were some statements being made..i.e. against Davis but too lazy to get to the polls to make it.

These People need to be Reached..it's a National Shame that we don't have 90% voter turnout. :kick:

[DEMActivist]

2. Not TRYING, speaking clearly

Both of my adult daughters give me the same reply when I hound them to vote:

"Why bother? Politicians all lie to get elected and then screw you when they do."

[davhill]

3. You get turnout when there is an exciting candidate.

The only candidate people got excited about in California was Schwarzenegger.

[NuckinFutz]

4. As a former non-voter

what convinced me to break ranks was hearing the fanaticism spewing from the administration after 9/11. I'd always been apathetic about issues, a registered independent who rarely paid attention or voted, because I never really saw how any of it applied to me and my family. It took the ignorant ravings of Bush to make me sit up and pay attention. I feel now that if I don't vote, it means that I condone the lies and the bigotry, and the fear mongering and the war mongering. The 'with us or against us' crap pushed me directly into the against Bush camp.

I'm working to wake up all the non-voters I can. If we don't start making choices, there won't be any left to make. If evil prospers, it won't be because I did nothing.

We can reach them, if we put things on a personal level. They have to understand how policy affects them.

[Cha]

6. Thanks for your input!

I was an occasional voter, myself, until 2000 woke me up to think about my future and then I included the future of our Country and Planet into that! :kick:

[Blitz]

5. non-voters

were the minority in this past election.

[Cha]

7. Oh really? That's a start!

To Voters..at least they are out there trying! :toast:

[Ripley]

9. I heard it was 7 million out of 33 million who voted.

So how do 26 million non-voters become the minority?

[Blitz]

16. 33 million

includes children, legal immigrants, illegal immigrants and others who are not eligible to vote for one reason or another. There are just over 15 million registered voters in the state. Moreover, there were quite a few more than 7 million votes cast on Tuesday. Wait until the absentee and provisional votes are counted and you'll see that the voter turnout was really quite impressive and well over 50% of the registered voters.

[JackRiddler]

12. okay, fine...

Non-voters are the BIG plurality. In California just now, according to official turn out: 40 percent. In 2002 and in all mid-terms, always over 60 percent. In 2000, something just under 50 percent. In 1992, 45 percent. In 1988 a simple majority (50.1 percent, later revised down to 49.9, which my paranoid mind of course suspects is finagling to avoid total embarrassment...)

How to get them active again?

Hint: Probably not by saying, "Those non-voting pigs are at fault for everything, they make me so angry, grrr, spit, venom, bile!!!"

[jiacinto]

8. Some Answers

I worked with voter registration for a few weeks and can give some input.

Your first question: What about winning the non-voter?

That is very hard. Most "non-voters" really don't care. They are either too cynical or they just aren't interested. For them voting is an abstraction or something they don't want to do. Or they just "don't vote".

Some of them can be won. And the ones we need to win are in heavily Democeratic areas where turnout is low compared to the potential base of voters. Or we need to register them were the population is underserved.

The next question. Who are the non-voters?

A wide variety of Americans. As I was working in low income areas most of the ones I saw were minorities. However, if you randomly polled "non-voters", you would probably find that they run the gamet of race, creed, gender, religion, and sexual orientation.

So I don't think there is one clear "characterization" of the "non-voter".

Why are they not voting?

That question I answer by stating because some of them are too lazy. Others just don't care. That's the brutal truth. Or they are "too busy". Others "don't want to fill out the form". That's one answer.

The other answer is that probably they would if the polls were open at more convenient hours or if we took them there. They also probably don't vote because of the time it takes to work and to take care of the family.

Do you even want to reach them?

Yes, but with the following caveat. You want the ones who live in heavily Democratic precincts to come on. You want the ones registered who live in areas where Democrats do well but where the registration is low compared to the pool of potential voters.

[azrak]

18. I have a plan

WOW! 40% of the population doesn't vote unless they get inspired/excited/motivated by someone.

Get a bunch of absentee ballot requests. Have a party at your house. Pass them out to all your friends, have them register with your address.

When you get their ballots fill them out, put them in the envelopes and meet with each friend so they can sign and "vote"

If you have lots of friends you can vote for the candidates you want for all of them ;) /sarcasm off

[jiacinto]

19. But even then

they "dont' want to fill out the form". Trust me. I've been there.

[kayell]

10. I believe that most non-voters are potential Dems

for several reasons. One is that many non-voters are poorer, minorities or working people who have difficulty getting to the polls. Since it can be difficult to find a sitter, a ride, the time from work, it takes a lot of motivation in the form of a worthwile candidate to have these people make the effort.

Another reason I will have to explain a bit because I don't know how to do tables here. Elections are won by democrats more often when there is higher voter turnout. Obviously those higher percentages in some elections come from sometime non-voters who have been motivated by something to vote in that election. When they do vote, a high number of them vote democratic, electing a dem. To do the math on this go to http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election and scroll down to the voter turnout table. If you average the percentage turnout for elections in which Republican or Democratic candidates win, you will see a higher percentage of voter turnout for dem winners.

Why do these sometime voters go away in some elections? I suspect that they become disillusioned as yet another dem president does not deliver on the things that brought them out to vote for a dem in the first place. They don't see the social and economic benefits for themselves that they have been led to hope for. They feel that there really is no difference in their personal lives between a dem and a repub. Do we have the courage to actually run a candidate that could make a real difference?

[jiacinto]

11. I disagree

I really do on that point. I've heard the "hiden liberal majority" theory for years, but truly haven't seen anything to prove it.

I think that many of these voters simply don't care.

[JackRiddler]

13. My suspicion...

having been a voter when I was young and then a non voter for several cycles before 2000: many (not certain what percentage, but MANY) simply think there is little difference among candidates on the issues that count, the whole thing is a charade or theater where the positions are only pretended, even if candidates say different things what comes out after the election will be similar, nobody cares what the voters think once after they vote.

This is neither "liberal" nor "conservative." It has a lot to do with the general atmosphere of apathy, consumerism, ignorance about substance, the whole constant media overload with very little content-to-fluff ratio...

I think someone with a strong and genuine message of change that focuses on actual issues (but keeps it simple) always has a shot at breaking into that. It can come from the left or the right or from somewhere off the accepted political spectrum. It can be play-acted, but it often works. (See Clinton.) The strength of the message is unfortunately more important than the actual politics.

Pretty much every candidate who can does try one tactic, althought they never actually mention "non-voters": they run as "outsiders." See latest example in California.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. I Have Posted This Several Times...

The research suggests :

"......no objectively achieved increase in turnout-including compulsory voting -would be a boon to progressive causes or Democratic candidates. Simply put, voters differ minimally from all citizens;outcomes would not change if everyone voted."

http://www.igs.berkeley.edu/publications/par/July1999/HightonWolfinger/html

[JackRiddler]

20. suggests, okay...

Talks with many non-voters suggest to me that the majority usually don't know much about politics, as one might expect, and they tend not to have opinions on a lot of issues, especially foreign policy issues that are actually connected to their "bread and butter" issues, but they just don't see it yet.

The way they are approached and brought into politics will have much to do with what their opinions become, once they actually form opinions.

And there is definitely a minority whose attitude is, "those guys are all gangsters and that's I won't bother."

Both groups differ obviously from frequent voters. Foreign policy is largely irrelevant to everyone in the U.S., but voters do tend to have an opinion more often than non-voters, if it's no more salient than "We must be strong against Threat X" or "What are we doing in all these places, anyway?" Non-voters are more likely to ask, "where are these places, anyway?"

There are surely ways to win non-voters from these two groups for either side, right or left...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. I Forgot The Methodology In That Study

but I have seen polls of actual voters matched against all adults and Reagan still won, Bush still won, Clinton still won, etcetera...


But even folks who subscribe to this position would agree that voter turnout is determinitive in hotly contested races...

[0rganism]

14. That holding votes on a working Tuesday is insane?

If the polls close at 8, and Joe Blow doesn't get off work til 5:30, and by the time he gets to the precinct it's 6, and there's no place to park nearby, and it's raining, and there's a big-ass line wrapping around the building, and there's a bar a few blocks down the street, Mr. Blow might just pass on the election and get hammered watching football instead.

Now look at vote-by-mail in Oregon, where I live. Essentially, everyone gets an absentee ballot for each election, mailed out a couple weeks prior. Our voting rates almost doubled. Now 75% returns are the norm, not the exception. Of course, there's a whole mess of potential problems that come with this process: voter fraud, coercion, mail theft, and so on. But that's not the point.

Given more leeway and convenience, more people will vote.

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that the outcomes didn't change too much after VBM came into play. The state gov't still remains pretty much deadlocked, with a conservative-tilt legislature and a Democratic governor. The tax cut measures and bond measures usually pass, the anti-gay and anti-union measures usually fail (but not by much), just like they did before VBM.

Like Carlos has noted, increasing turnout doesn't necessarily make for a more Democratic vote, although it's more democratic.

My suggestion? Have the votes on weekends, or give a full holiday if the vote must be held on a weekday. I've heard it suggested that we ought to hold national elections on Memorial day, and that's not a half bad idea.

[catmandu57]

17. Weekends maybe, it may simply be the wrong message

is getting out the issues we percieve to be important are'nt important enough to get people excited. To many people life goes on no matter who is in office, any changes promised just won't affect them enough to get out and vote.
Maybe we do need to change to a weekend vote, use mail in, change the damn message.
Also, we need to do something about the barrage of political commercials, that in itself is a big reason why people don't turn out. By election day they are so burned out on hearing this crap, it just reinforces negative they're all the same image.
The media is to blame here, they make so damn much money off of political commercials, you'de have to pry them off the teat. Putting a cap on what they can charge, or demanding they give equal free time to opponents might put a damper on this.

[JackRiddler]

21. "I don't care"

Sounds like a correct pathology of the non-voter. But what is the etiology, and what will the patient look like after a "cure"?

We cannot know until it happens.

What would happen if these apathetic people were motivated to care?

First, how do you motivate them? Can anything motivate them? Will the manner of the motivation make a difference in the outcome?

(OBVIOUSLY!)

And once they're motivated, what are they then? Democrats, Republicans, something entirely new?

No way of telling NOW that they'll be liberal, right wing or otherwise, because they probably themselves have devoted little thought to it.

I think there is serious potential here. For example, if someone could devote money on the scale of what Dubya can afford, to a campaign devoted entirely to non-voters, their demographic, their needs, motivating them, educating them how exactly to vote, making voting look attractive to them... I think the potential is there to pick up a fifth or a third of the non-voters!

But no money, alas, and I think the elites like it that way. A large electorate may not be more liberal, but it would be more unpredictable!

[KaraokeKarlton]

22. Non-voters might vote if...

They were presented a candidate who inspired them enough to want to get out and vote. It's actually happening this time around. Howard Dean is attracting a slew of non-voters to his campaign. Not only are they paying attention, but they are getting involved and contributing to his campaign as well. If you go to your local meetup and ask how many people never were involved in politics before, over half the room would raise their hands. Ask who doesn't usually vote and you'd get just about as many hands in the air. It's a whole new base this time around. Dean's got brand new voters all psyched up to get registered and vote for him in the primaries. This is also why he will easily beat Bush. As long as the Democratic voters who always vote support Dean, there is NO WAY Bush can beat Dean.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. The reason I've encountered most often is

deep disillusionment and cynicism. This includes some people I know who ARE knowledgeable about current events. They simply think that all politicians promise the moon and don't deliver or promise something and then turn around and do the exact opposite when they're elected.

I wish that we could at least get people like this to see the importance of local elections, because local elections often have much more influence on a person's everyday life than state or national ones do. If they could see that their vote for Joe Blow for school board made a positive difference in their child's educational experience, or that their vote for Jane Doe for city council brought a traffic light to a dangerous intersection in their neighborhood,for example, they might be inspired to vote for other offices.