One Utah

The US has one of the lowest voter participation rates in the world. In 2004. nearly half the eligible voters stayed at home rather than voting. That’s a bad thing. However, and I suspect there is a connection, a large portion of eligible voters are politely called “low information voters.” These are people who frankly can’t tell you much about the issues, about who is running and what races they are running for. These are also people who would fail basic civics classes. Like a great many bloggers, I’m a political junkie. To me, the electoral system is relatively easy to understand. I usually know who I’m voting for the minute I step into the voting booth, I’ve read ballot initiatives and so forth. So when I talk to these voters who usually have no clue what’s going on, I am usually flummoxed.

Case in Point:

I had an encounter the other day with a coworker. This man is a college student. He wanted to know more about the electoral system so he went to a website and read it. Our conversation began when he explained that he wasn’t voting this year since the “super electors” had already decided the outcome of the presidential election.

My coworker had confused “super delegates” to the convention with members of the Electoral college. This is bad enough, but he was also convinced that the electors had already been chosen in the primary and that the race was already over. So he couldn’t understand why we were having any more elections any way.

Now there’s several problems with my coworker’s understanding of the process (obviously). First, he really didn’t know the distinction between the primary and the general election; he didn’t understand the role of the electoral college and how many people are in it; he was ignoring the fact that the presidential race isn’t the only race on the ballot; finally, he was confused about the entire process - the way in which the primary leads to the general election and so forth.

It’s easy to dismiss my coworker has someone who has just gotten his information scrambled. He’s relatively bright, but he’s maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed. But, 8 years ago, he was eleven. The mishmash of problems from that election would have largely gone over his head, but have left him with an impression of a system that is hopelessly corrupt and convoluted, a system so complex that it cannot work. Today, he looks and says, “Al Gore won the popular vote, why wasn’t he president.” The other issues in that election - including the blatant problems with the Supreme Court’s decision - go over his head. I recommended he read Vincent Bugliosi’s excellent book on the subject (in it Bugliosi pulls no punches and leaves no doubt the contempt he feels for the Court and its Bush v Gore decision, which held that George W. Bush would be harmed by losing the election and it required their intervention into a matter already decided by the Florida court using Florida state law; a decision which overstepped the Court’s authority).

The toxic legacy of 2000 is not only the abject and myriad failures of the Bush Administration, but the way in which that election turned off a great many people to the electoral process in general.

Many of these folks no doubt started with little understanding of the electoral process. The Republican’s bald faced shenanigans in that election and the spinelessness of the Dems simply reinforced the already negative perception of the system for those voters.

The problem arises then when these voters try to do their civic duty and vote. They honest to God don’t know what they’re doing. So it leaves us with a huge problem. How do you educate a voter who just doesn’t get it in the five minutes of free time they have?

I have a series of talking points I use but I don’t know if they help.

1. The presidential race is not the only race that matters. Two years ago, Utah House Speaker Greg Curtis won by a tiny margin. 30 more voters could have changed that outcome. Legislative, county and city officials have a far more immediate impact on your life than does almost any thing done at the national level. Most of those races are decided on a straight forward basis - whoever gets the most votes wins.

2. You don’t have to vote on every race on the ballot. If you think the presidential is fixed, then vote for the others.

3. The State of Utah produces a pretty good voter information guide every election. You can download it at utah.gov. It tells you about the candidates, races, ballot initiatives etc. It’s worth reading.

4. Last but not least: You buy your bitching rights. If you don’t vote, I won’t listen to you bitch about things. You don’t like how things are being run? Get off your backside and do something about it.

5. If you believe the system is corrupt, the only way to fix it is for people who aren’t corrupt to participate actively. Maybe you don’t know who to vote for. Fine. It’s not hard to get information about candidates or your districts. Go to utah.gov and look up your elected officials. Call a campaign. Look up their websites. Inform yourself and get involved. The surest way for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Don’t be a do nothing. Back when Chris Buttars saying racist things in public, I had a coworker, who lives in his district, ask what to do. I said, work against him. Call a town meeting. Heck, I’ll bet there’s a town meeting you can attend. Write a letter to the editor. Email him. She didn’t do any of those things and when I asked if she was volunteering for his opponent, she said she’d like to. In the end, she’s not doing anything. All your moral outrage is worth a cup of warm spit until you do something with it.

At the end of the day, low information voters are often the voters who are vaguely aware of the candidates. They are the voters who aren’t sure how the parties differ and the unfortunately are the voters who are often most marginalized in our system. If you don’t vote, if your voice is silent, you will be ignored.

This entry was posted Sunday, July 27th, 2008 at 5:44 pm and is filed under 2008 Election, People Are Nuts, This Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.