No-Show
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96: Americans Who Do Not Vote
On November 5, Bill Clinton or Bob Dole will be elected President of the United States.Assuming that the three-decade trend of declining voter turnout continues, their contest will bedecided by roughly half of the eligible electorate. More than 88 million Americans will notbother to vote. Many of them will be like Jason Caldwell, a 29-year-old roofer from suburbanKansas city who conventional wisdom suggests should vote.Caldwell is certainly no stranger to political activism. He works on the campaigns of hisfavorite local candidates, helping to rally support by passing out bumper stickers and yard signs.He actively follows his Congressman
’
s voting record and regularly fires off letters to register hisopinions. But Jason made a conscious choice not to vote in the 1992 presidential andcongressional elections, and he
’
s not sure that he
’l
l voter this November
. “I
didn
’
t like any of thecandidates, and I
’
m not going to vote for someone I don
’
t believe i
n,” he
said.Shawn Curtis, 24, lives with his mother, stepfather, and girlfriend in Laguna Niguel,California. He watches a television newscast four or five nights each week and reads thenewspaper daily. He has a generally favorable view of both the Republican and Democraticparties, although he says he feels closer to the Democrats because
, “
I
’
m not into the anti-abortionstuff
.”
Curtis also chose not to vote in 1992 because, as he put it
, “I
just didn
’
t think it [voting] madea difference either way. I wasn
’
t really interest
ed.”
He says the only thing that could get him tothe polls this November would be a close election, but since he expects President Clinton to winreelection easily he probably won
’
t vote.The last time Terril Printy voted for president she got so nervous that she pulled the wronghandle. It was 1988, and the lifelong Republican accidentally cast her vote for Democrat MichaelDukakis. The experience was so horrifying she hasn
’
t voted si
nce. “Expe
rience has taught me ales
son,”
the 49-year-old resident of Montrose, Iowa not
ed. “E
ven when we vote, we have nocontrol over wha
t’
s going on in government
.”
Kelly Michael Smith only watches the news when he can
’
t find a good baseball or footballgame on TV
. “I
love my Mets, and the 49ers are the best
,” exp
lained the 39-year-old single fatherfrom Dayton, Washington.
Smith occasionally picks up a copy of his local newspaper, but between working various odd jobs, taking care of his 7-year-old son Skylar, and tracking the Mets and 49ers, he doesn
’
t havetime to monitor either local or national politics
. “
I
’
m too busy trying to surviv
e,”
he laments.Although Smith has lived in the same house for more than two years, he is not registered tovote. And while his search for work has temporarily taken him to California, South Dakota, andArizona at different times over that time span, he doesn
’
t view his mobility as the majorimpediment to registering
. “
I
’
ve always had it in my mind that I shoul
d,” he
sai
d. “I
might just doit this year, but I
’
ve got so much going on right now
.”
Maralynn McDonald, a 69-year-old resident of Oceanside, California, can no longerremember the last time she voted, although she can tell you that the last president she trusted wasJohn F. Kennedy. Since she doesn
’
t like her current alternatives, she has already decided againstvoting this year
. “
I
t’
s discouraging when you find out how [politicians] actually live and foolaround and all that stuff
,”
she complains.
“
They make it sound like they
’r
e trying to dosomething, but they never actually
do.”
Sometime shortly after September 1, every major news organization that conducts publicopinion polls will begin making a concerted effort to identify these likely nonvoters and excludethem from their surveys. Nonvoters will be all but forgotten until November 6, when scholarsand political pundits alike will begin asking the quadrennial question: Can democracy survivewithout the active participation of half its members?Medill Journalism School and WTTW Television in Chicago set out to answer that question,at least in part. Working with the Campaign Study Group, Medill and WTTW identified 1,001people who are not likely to vote this November and asked them a series of questions designed toprovide demographic, political, and information-consumption profiles of the non-votingpopulation. We discovered that while there is some truth in the stereotypical view of thenonvoter, it is a mistake to view these electoral non-participants as a monolith if one
’
s goal is tomaximize voting. There are, in fact, five distinct groups of nonvoters who view government, thepolitical parties, politicians, and the news very differently.
Busting The Conventional Wisdom
Viewed as a whole, the likely nonvoters we surveyed conform in many ways to conventionalwisdom (Table 1):
Compared with their likely voter counterparts, likely nonvoters aredisproportionately young. While 16 percent of the likely voters identified by the
survey had not yet celebrated their thirtieth birthday, 39 percent of the likelynonvoters were between the ages of 18 and 29.
Likely nonvoters are significantly less educated than likely voters. Fifty-five percentof the likely nonvoters have a high school education or less; the comparable figureamong likely voters is 37 percent. While 18 percent of the likely nonvoters have acollege degree, 37 percent of likely voters are college graduates.
Household incomes for likely nonvoters tend to be lower than those reported bylikely voters. Nearly half (48%) of the nonvoters surveyed said their 1995 householdincome was below $30,000. One-third (33%) of the likely voters reported householdincomes that low.
Minorities comprise a larger share of the likely nonvoter pool
—
30 percent of thenonvoters are nonwhite compared with 18 percent of the likely voters.
Nonvoters are far less likely than voters to follow politics. When asked how oftenthey follow wha
t’
s going on in government and public affairs, 53 percent of thelikely voters res
ponded “
most of the tim
e,”
and only 5 percent sai
d “ha
rdly ever
.”
Among likely nonvoters, just 24 percent res
ponded “
most of the tim
e,”
while another24 percent sai
d “ha
rdly ever
”
(Table 2).However, while interesting, the group attributes that distinguish likely nonvoters from likelyvoters obscure nearly as much as they reveal. Although they tend to be less educated, 18 percentof all likely nonvoters do have a college degree. While they tend to be less well off financially,43 percent have household incomes of $30,000 or more, including 12 percent whose householdincome during 1995 was between $50,000 and $74,999 and another 6 percent who reportedmaking $75,000 or more. While as a group they are significantly younger than likely voters, one-quarter of all likely nonvoters are 45 years old or older.Using cluster analysis, a statistical technique for classifying respondents into the mosthomogeneous, mutually exclusive groups possible, we have identified five types of nonvoters:
Nearly three out of ten (29%) of the likely nonvoters can be described as
“
Doer
s.”
They are disproportionately young, even for nonvoters. Nearly half (48%) of allDoers are between the ages of 18 and 29, and another 32 percent are between theages of 30 and 44. While 38 percent of all other nonvoters report 1995 householdincomes of $30,000 or more, 55 percent of Doers had incomes that high. Fifty-fivepercent of Doers said they have attended college, including 23 percent who have acollege degree. The comparable college attendance figure for all other nonvoters was