Two related must-read items that I wanted to pass along.
- Voting Torture for Vito (h/t Christine Stuart)
- 6,453 Perez Votes: No Vindication (h/t tparty
It’s easy to understand why someone would choose not to vote in Connecticut. Politicians like Eddie Perez, Lou DeLuca, John Fabrizi, etc. are hardly the best spokespeople for Democracy. Corruption happens almost in plain sight with little if any consequence, and rumors of voter fraud seem more plausible with every election cycle.
Voter apathy isn’t a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. It’s a cancer on our state and local governments that affects everyone. What can we do to cure that cancer?
20 responses so far ↓
Voter apathy is not a *problem*, per se: it is an effective tool for those seeking to maintain the status quo, and it is a direct result of inaction and incrementalism in the face of our society’s most pressing problems.
I tend to think of the absence of political courage as the problem, and the learned impulse to retreat from the new back towards the familiar among too much of our political class.
I should mention (repeat?) that disaffiliation marks the same trend: voters who feel only a superficial engagement with the political process are all too likely to drop out of it altogether.
Higher turnout than norm in Milford last week.
>>What can we do to cure that cancer?
8th grade civics for starters.
Most people don’t understand the process at all; much less their part in it.
A glance at turnout in presidential years should be enough to illustrate that point.
Sorry, meant to say that so far I know there were more than the usual in a Municipal, but we don’t have the info back yet on the ratios of Dems/GOP turnout.
Traditionally (you know: “Conventional Wisdom”) the Dems stay home when it rains and the GOP still comes out to vote. This, of course, is because the Democrats are so sweet they will melt in the rain and the Republicans are just a bunch of robots who do as they are told by a Fascistic Regime.
Wow… that link to Voting Torture for Vito is something.
Why not try to focus on voters who are up on the issues but maybe lazy, as opposed to these that the article highlights. While not illegal, maybe should be, I don’t know.
Read like these guys were almost being kidnapped.
“Voter apathy isn’t a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. It’s a cancer on our state and local governments that affects everyone. What can we do to cure that cancer?”
I think I agree with much of what matt w says in his first post here.
Speaking for myself only, but based largely on the observations matt w has made in his post number 1 I sadly know that I often vote for not who I consider the better canidate, but who I consider the lesser of two evils.
It’s not so much me wondering if my vote matters in deciding who gets elected, it’s more that I often feel it makes little difference who does get elected….. I suspect I may not alone in feeling that way.
In addition, I doubt that most apathetic voters even are aware of this, but as a half dozen or so Senators are running around the country for the last year working to win our vote for President, they are themselves missing about a third of their own votes in the senate.
In our case voting is a right. In their case voting is a big part of their job. If your going to cure cancer you need to track down every cell, not just the obvious ones.
Turnout has always puzzled me when you compare municipal years to presidential years.
Generally turnout is higher in presidential years when we are exposed to the greatest amount of campaigning and the highest degree of what most people say turns them off, meaning the well financed barrage of nasty ads, accusations, distortions, dog fight like news coverage, etc.
In a municipal year there tends to be less of that negative noise (less money spent also). In theory the issues are closer to the voter’s hearts and minds. Your vote counts for more in the smaller turnout universe. There’s a greater chance that you actually know the candidates. Despite all of this, turnout is almost always lower. Budget referendums are worse. The bottom falls out altogether there.
I know there are exceptions. Towns run hot and cold depending on what’s going on but it appears that voter apathy is an equal opportunity disease. Curry points to West Hartford to contrast Hartford’s turnout. West Hartford’s turnout was 38.2%. Hardly anything to crow about. (To be fair he does raise the registered vs. voter age breakdown in Hartford. That’s a statistic worth comparing town to town).
Anyway, as long as the voter universe keeps shrinking and more campaigns learn to target that shrinking universe to win, I think this trend will continue. Political leadership that inspires expansion of that universe is rare and rhetoric about expansion is too often only that. Expecting candidates to solve the apathy problem or blaming them for it is too easy and simplistic. They do have a responsibility but so do the rest of us as well.
I agree with ACR about civics lessons and not just for kids either. I don’t want to sound like an old fart but I was raised to believe that it was my duty to vote and I’ve never missed an election, referendum, etc. I was taught that at home and at school. I don’t have much patience for adults who say (sometimes with a perverse sense of pride) that voting isn’t worth their time. We need to challenge people like that as citizens and parents of future voters. We all have people like that in our lives whether we like to admit it or not. This stuff isn’t going to get turned around overnight and the solution isn’t going to be partisan or even very political.
[quote comment="22242"]>>What can we do to cure that cancer?
8th grade civics for starters.
Most people don’t understand the process at all; much less their part in it.
A glance at turnout in presidential years should be enough to illustrate that point.[/quote]
While I agree in spirit I had 8th grade civics, and state and local government courses in college. It hasn’t helped me understand the complex and often labrynthine processes of our state and local municipalities’ electoral process.
Sure I get the big stuff. And I try to expand on my knowledge by reading things on the web in what little spare time I have; but sadly it hasn’t changed much.
Frankly I think the best and biggest step politics as a whole could do to encourage voter participation is to simplify the process on a state wide level. I don’t mean dumb it down; I do mean that if there were a set of procedures that remained the same no matter what state or local office a person was running for then we as voters would only have to learn one set of procedures instead of 300 or so.
Can I tell you what would cause an immediate run off in a local primary? No. Can I tell you what causes automatic recounts in a state election? No
Can I tell you how many signatures John Smith has to get to run for town clerk as a third party candidate? No, no I can’t.
To those of you who live in this world these things may seem like no brainers to you. But the fact that the answers to these and many other questions may change based upon which position/municipality or even party you are in makes the system somewhat indecipherable.
No one likes to feel stupid yet every time I go to the polls I’m never exactly sure if I’m voting for the person I want to vote for in the right way; or for that matter the myriad of consequences that may come from my vote.
Education is important I just don’t think it will change much. The complexity of the system coupled with those who wish to maintain the status quo along with the corruption we often see make it very hard for a person not well versed in politics to understand the value of their vote.
I will restate what I have said in previous threads. On the local level, the voters really don’t know who is running because the candidates have difficulty getting their information out to the voter. The voters may know who is First Selectman or Mayor but after that it is up for grabs. State Representative races are not much better but the incumbent rep generally gets enough ‘ink’ or TV during a term to have name recognition. Not so the challenger. It isn’t until the State Senator Races that the amount of voters and area of district warrants a TV or radio campaign that will provide the name recognition. Experts say that the voter has to see and remember seeing your name at least seven times before the name will ’stick’ long enough to make a vote. Since the voter does not have that type of recognition for most ballot undertickets in local elections, the voter tends to stay home. Only the approximately 30-40 percent of the voters who make the effort to read about and study (sometimes) the candidate will vote in the local election. The solution to this problem is to make the ability to get the word out about a local candidate easier. This may occur in about a generation as those folks who have grown up with computers, the internet, and e mail become the majority. It certainly is easier to get information posted on the internet and to search for information on the internet. Now if the info is posted, can we force the voter to look at it???
You make some excellent points Robert. The good news is that no one here knows everything. I eat, sleep, and breathe politics and not a day goes by where I don’t have a question about something related to the political process here.
Part of any education has to be how the information is presented. No one appreciates being talked at, not even small children. The challenge is to make civics for kids and adults more interactive and engaging. Blogs are a great example of how to do that, but we don’t reach most of the voting population and as much as I fantasize about every person in CT reading CTLP daily, it ain’t gonna happen.
Beyond that we need more competitive races that don’t feel like coronations. I don’t live in a city right now, but when I lived in Brooklyn I often found election day unsettling. So many offices had just one person running. Elections were decided in the primary and while I love primaries they shouldn’t be the final stop to victory for anyone. Sadly, this is also the case in some CT cities. Republicans won’t make any inroads there but I’m hopeful that parties like the WFP could create some genuine competition in the future.
Voter apathy will only increase. Look voters were energized last year and thought putting dems in congress would end a war. Now voters are saying what is the point? Just voters believe: Politicians just don’t care.
Usually once someone thinks that way its hard to convince them that this guy he is going to change the system.
>> I think the best and biggest step politics as a whole could do to encourage voter participation is to simplify the process on a state wide level.
The problem is, people aren’t interested – they’re home watching football.
That turnout is substantially higher in presidential years only proves that; seeing as many states aren’t even in play.
Meanwhile the Board of Ed budget in many CT towns makes up something around 70% of the annual municipal budget – yet press coverage is weak, as is overall interest.
Logically, turnout should be higher for local elections than for national – but clearly that’s not the case.
Go figure.
Have a major party BOE slate campaign on shutting down the public schools, and you’ll get your turnout.
Civics is already a high school graduation requirement.
What I don’t think has been mentioned is how little control town officials have over their town — federal and state laws and regulations dictate a lot of what has to happen.
Too much time and energy is spent working around campaign finance regulations — which should be called “incumbent protection and media influence” laws. Repeal them all. Freedom of press and speech without freedom to spend are neutered freedoms.
Well I know this is going to really upset some folks here, perhaps like you Gerard; but my pesonal opinion is that when it comes to elections the rules should be the same for everyone and the amount of money should be the same. Yes I’m talking about publicly funded elections.
Don’t show me that you have deep pockets and rich friends with deeper pockets. Show me that you can make more of the same amount of money as your opponent.
Play fair, follow the rules and let the better man with the better message and the better staff and the better ability to manage campaign finances win.
Oh and since the politicians won’t be killing themselves raising money (at least on a Federal level) they can stay in D.C. and do their frickin’ jobs instead of galivanting around the country with their hands out.
>>Civics is already a high school graduation requirement.
Yes – but could it be any more obvious that the majority just didn’t seem to “get” it?
Attend 5 functions in the same town; not all political, you know, Red Cross, church, any sort of goodie-two-shoes event plus one or two political events and you’ll notice an amazing number of people that overlap. It seems only around 20% of the population is actually doing anything – no small wonder that voter turnout’s at only 10% higher than that.
Would I be a heretic if I said that maybe it’s a good thing that turnout is low? The people who care enough to vote are usually the ones who know something about the issues. Better that, I say, than to have masses of individuals who vote out of a sense of “duty” or responsibility, but have not really thought about or learned about the issues.
Of course, are the voters who vote actually educated about the issues, or are they simply participating because they like the competitive aspects of a race and being a part of a team? I think ACR’s observation in #17 is probably true, however. Most of the folks who do vote are the ones who are actively engaged in civic enterprises and probably are knowledgable about issues.
Besides, everyone who doesn’t vote helps make my power greater!
>>Would I be a heretic if I said that maybe it’s a good thing that turnout is low?
That a large number of Lexus driving, McMansion dwelling “swells”; and those guys with their hats & sleeveless t-shirts parked in front of their TV’s with a (domestic) beer (that they consume directly from the container) fail to appear at the polls is perfectly alright with me.
They don’t show up for anything else either, so when they spare us their indifference I see no reason for the rest of us to complain.
Some countries require voters to come to the polls. I think this does more harm than good.
What that means for our country is that our elections don’t reflect the will of all of the people–they reflect the will of the people who bother to show up. I’m okay with that.
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