Low Voter Turnout Causes Concern Some Skeptical Non-Voters Say Political Process Is Not Working

In the aftermath of the lowest voter turnout since 1924 in last week’s election, the debate over why so many Americans stayed home largely has focused on this year’s candidates and issues.

But for five of those Americans who skipped going to the polls last Tuesday, the issue wasn’t the political landscape as much as a deeply held skepticism of the process.

“I’d like to see the government work for little people like me,” said Kathy Smith, a homemaker and volunteer from Olympia.

Paula Ryan, a Phoenix mortgage processor, said party labels get in the way of practical solutions.

“What is a liberal? What is a conservative? They’re all basically the same,” Ryan said. “Whatever face they feel the public wants to see and will vote for, that’s what they’ll be. Why can’t we get rid of these labels and concentrate on making laws and getting the job done?”

Frances Fox Piven, author of “Why Americans Don’t Vote,” also is concerned the continuing drop in voter turnout could lead to elections decided by a minority whose concerns are dramatically different from those of non-voters.

Said Michael Keegan, a Norristown, Pa., stonemason who went hunting on Election Day: “It’s about time that this country sees that some of us are not voting not because we don’t want to vote but because we have no one to vote for. … It’s got to make some changes. And how can you make changes if you’re just going along with this process as it is now?”

Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, said the election victors “have essentially no mandate” because 76 percent of the voting-age population did not vote for President Clinton and 79 percent did not vote for a Republican Congress.

“It was a mandateless election,” he said. “It also was an election that portended an increasing weakening of the civic impulse.”

On Tuesday, only 49 percent of voting-age Americans went to the polls, the lowest turnout since 50.1 percent in 1924, Gans said.

Since 1960, voter turnout has declined 22 percent, according to census data on the number of eligible voters. The average turnout in presidential elections dating back to 1930 has been 56 percent.

Some people believe non-voters are a monolith of poor, unmotivated, uneducated people.

But a survey by Medill News Service last summer of 1,001 likely non-voters found there are five types of people who don’t vote - and they’re just as likely to go to Harvard, coach Little League and attend school board meetings as voters are.

And on Election Day, interviews with a non-voter from each group, described below, reinforced what the summer survey found.

“Doers” (29 percent), such as Sue Jablonsky, 35, make up the largest block of non-voters. They’re young, college-educated and somewhat involved in their communities.

Like many of those surveyed, Jablonsky, of New Brighton, Pa., is dispirited by the political process and the people involved. “I wish there were someone worth voting for,” she said.

“Unpluggeds” (27 percent), such as Paula Ryan, 42, of Phoenix, are disproportionately young and don’t follow current events through the media. They generally are more skeptical than the “doers” and are less likely to volunteer time to a charity.

Ryan may be unplugged from media outlets, but she is not out of touch. “The media are all biased,” she said. “They’re all Democratic views.” She watches C-SPAN and talks with her husband, co-workers and neighbors to keep up on current events.

“Irritables” (18 percent), unlike “unpluggeds,” are avid information consumers who are angry. They are older than the “unpluggeds” and the “doers,” think the country is on the “wrong track” and overwhelmingly agree that “most elected officials don’t care what people like me think.”

They’re like Election Day hunter Michael Keegan, 40, who hopes that by not voting, he sent a strong message to the government about the quality of the candidates.

“Don’t Knows” (14 percent) largely ignore politics and public affairs.

But as Richard Hobby, 43, of Gramby, N.Y., watched television last Tuesday, he said, “This country does not offer anything to anyone who’s lower-class.”

“Alienateds” (12 percent) are angry like the “irritables,” yet removed like the “don’t knows.”

Olympia resident Kathy Smith, 31, is typical. She never has voted and believes the country is on the wrong track. “If you ask my opinion, I’d like Mickey Mouse to win,” she said.

Ruy Teixeira, director of the Economic Policy Institute, said people were even more turned off than he had thought they would be.

He said Clinton might have won by a wider margin if there had been a higher voter turnout, but whether Republicans still would have controlled Congress is harder to call. “I don’t think the results would be dramatically different,” he said.

Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based political think tank, agreed that the effect of more people going to the polls would be minimal. “If everyone voted, it would not have altered the outcome of past elections,” he said.

Whether the views of voters and non-voters differ, however, is another question. “If you look at the preferences for, say, presidential candidates among voters and non-voters, typically there is very little difference,” Mann said.

But Piven said, “Results would be different if everyone voted.”

“What we really have to worry about is a political system that ignores the concerns of the non-voter,” she said.

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