2014 midterms - poll shows why registered voters didn't vote

[gmb92]

If Democrats want the country to become more progressive, voter turnout is critical, especially in midterms. If elections were only conducted every 4 years (2008, 2012), congresses, national and state, would look a lot different.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/12/a-ton-of-people-didnt-vote-because-they-couldnt-get-time-off-from-work/

This is only registered voters. Those not registered to vote would fall more into the "didn't care" category. This post doesn't cover the perpetually disinterested.

But voter turnout in midterms is way down from presidential elections (when close to 90% of registered voters turned out last 2 times). So polls like these can provide valuable insight.

I don't think these reasons are mutually-exclusive, but only 20% fell into the "didn't care" category. You could argue that those nearly 70% who said they were too busy, or conflicts with work/school didn't care either, but that's not entirely true. More accurately, their interest wasn't high enough to surpass the hassle, which is not the same as saying they had no interest. Some will rationalize it's still "only one vote".

The WaPost article has some suggestions on how to improve voter turnout, critical to Democratic success in elections, and I'll combine my thoughts.

1. Make Election Day a holiday. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill on this. A good argument to be made is that some employers are only accommodating during presidential elections. This takes care of that.

2. Make elections entirely vote by mail. Oregon has done this. Voter turnout there was quite high. Not surprisingly, Democrats actually extended their gains in the state congress, and won the governor and Senate races by wider margins than 2010. No more hassles of long lines. Then work/school isn't an issue. Forgetting becomes less of an excuse.

Other ideas?

There's the more difficult task of getting the non-registered voter interested, or getting the casually-interested voter interested enough to hassle themselves. I think Democrats need to be more unified in ideas, which is easier said than done. Republicans are excellent at starting a talking point and having everyone repeat it endlessly. It's not enough to talk about income inequality, but repeatedly mention the consequences of it that everyone can grasp. Economies stagnate and good jobs are lost when they are set up to favor the very wealthy. Propose a series of solutions for it (min. wage, higher taxes on top incomes, health care tax credits, education incentives, taxes on companies that outsource, etc.). When Republicans inevitably introduce legislation to cut taxes on the wealthy and gut regulation, immediately respond that it is a "job killer". So when reporters ask why they can explain it. Taxes for the wealthy add to the widening income gap, and are an opportunity cost. It means less money for schools and infrastructure. It means less money for tax cuts for working people. It means higher deficits (too many people think deficits are about spending only, not revenues), which hurts future generations. It means very low rates for the Romneys while the rest of us scrape by. Point to the Bush years as clear evidence. Deregulation is what causes boom/bust economies. Talk about how the Republican do-nothing Congress has done nothing but stifle progress.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. Clearly Schedule Conflicts With Work or School + To busy, out of town, sick = Republican love fest.

If they could not be bother to vote, then what we got is what they really, really wanted.

[upaloopa]

2. So much for the nothing to vote for meme.

Only 20% didn't vote because of the ballot

[RBInMaine]

4. Total BULLSHIT poll. People have TIME to vote in presidential cycles. They have TIME to wait in

line for TV's on Black Friday. Give me a break. This is BULLSHIT, and people were lying in the poll. They didn't vote because they didn't want to bother to vote or were just "uninspired."

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when they'll wait in line for hours to buy a TV on Black Friday but then claim they can't vote with early voting, polls open until 8pm, ... such BULLSHIT.

And as to these new voting laws, just go get the stupid ID card and vote. Quit the pissing and moaning.

[Igel]

8. Well, of course.

All you're saying is that people have prioritized their activities and time.

We always do this. Every day, for everything.

What you're seeing is what's more important. It's the same with everything else. Every time you see somebody say, "This is a hindrance to voting" keep that in mind. Voter participation has held fairly constant for the last 60 years. Even as we've gone to mail-in voting, easier absentee voting, early voting, extended-hours voting. We've knocked down barriers and impediments to voting. We've made it easier and easier, and it hasn't made a large difference in voter turnout.

Note that many consider the elections that are closer to the people to be less important, often because with a large centralized government all the lesser posts are so much lesser. The people that tend to think that the president is all-powerful or should be are leading the charge in this: If the president is the really important position, all the others, all those pesky senators and representatives, not to mention state levels, don't much matter. So why vote for them? The greater the perceived concentration in one man, the smaller the turnout elsewhere.

(Another OP talked about how greed's taken over the political system. This is also a case of prioritizing values. If there was a lot less return on manipulating the system, there'd be a much higher level of greed necessary for people to get involved. A lot of power means even those with a relatively low level of greed see a big reason to get involved; with less concentrated power, those who get involved for greed would have to be much more greedy, and there are fewer of those. The not-so-greedy crowd out the only mildly self-interested public-service group, and the system is further corrupted.)

[okieinpain]

11. lol, all you can really hope for is that the republican's over reach

but i doubt they will. which is why repugs stick to the anti-abortion bills, anti-affimative action and give tax breaks to the rich. the poor don't care because none of those things directly effect them, but slowly sinks their butts to the bottom of the barrel.

[aspirant]

14. A little here and there

Let's do the math. If 36% of registered voters voted that means 64% didn't vote. Now if 20% of those 64% didn't like the candidates and did not vote that means 12.8% reduction in vote tallies for uninspiring candidates. Add 12.8% to the candidates totals and how many would have won?

That's if we believe the poll.

[Sunlei]

3. Make Election Day a holiday, by mail/online and 24 full hours.

[fujiyama]

6. I agree with all of those options

Absentee voting for me has been great since I work long hours.

[blkmusclmachine]

5. Washington DC is happy with the status quo. Their kabuki theatre continues, as it always does..

[fujiyama]

7. So are the people

95% of incumbents were reelected two weeks ago.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/nov/11/facebook-posts/congress-has-11-approval-ratings-96-incumbent-re-e/

It's obvious that people are incapable of basic reasoning, are complete masochists, or just plain don't give a shit. The state of "democracy" in this country is very, very depressing.

[RussBLib]

10. go figure

[okieinpain]

12. it is very, very depressing. its like one of those movies

where the wife doesn't care the husband is a serial killer because he has money.

[RussBLib]

9. If the electronic voting machines could switch votes from one candidate to another ...

...could they also be altered to reduce the number of apparent voters?

That may be unlikely, but this election, like last election, the pre-Election Day polls were pretty far off from the results on Election Day. All those estimates of neck-and-neck races, and then on Election Day, the GOP blows out the Dems, often by double digits.

So many people running around saying, what was wrong with our polls? Maybe nothing. Maybe the problem was that the voting machines were manipulated. Nobody seems to wonder about that.

Until we have a "fix" for the unverifiable voting machines, I am not sure it's even worth voting.

[okieinpain]

13. LOL, the repugs don't have to do this at all,

just keep things to a slow boil and the crabs will not get excited.

[DFW]

15. Here in Germany, election day is always on a Sunday

Although they have their share of voter disenfranchisement, too, it turns out (unintentional, but enforced nonetheless).

One fine election day, my wife, who is a German citizen, went to vote, and was refused the right. She asked why, and they authorities told her it was because she was registered as a resident of Munich. She blew up at them, and said she had never in her life lived in Munich, or anywhere near Bavaria.

They said their computers said she lived in Munich, so she couldn't vote here (Rheinland area near Düsseldorf). A social worker by profession, she then told them to look up our 2 daughters, who were 3 and 5 at the time, to see where they lived. Sure enough, they lived where they were supposed to be living (I was still a legal resident of Dallas at the time). She said they were either to let her vote on the spot or arrest her for child abandonment, and she would call the police to come make sure they were arresting the right person. This is the one thing all lazy bureaucrats fear--reprimands from higher up. They let her vote, and changed her residence--even though they were still unable to erase her non/never-existing Munich residence from their records.