Vote Turnout Is Low In Midterms. Why Do not More Americans Vote? : NPR

Just in the past few months, elections in the U.S. have been decided by hundreds of votes.

The 2016 presidential election tilted to Donald Trump with less than 80,000 votes across three states, with a dramatic impact on the country. Yet, fewer than 6 in 10 eligible voters cast ballots in 2016.

Among the other 4 in 10 who did not vote was Megan Davis. The 31-year-old massage therapist in Rhode Island never votes, and she's proud of her record.

"I feel like my voice does not matter," she said, "I do not know what I mean, I do not have a difference."

Davis might sound contrarian, but she's not. Although these days more Americans say they're enthusiastic about voting in a midterm election than at any point in the last two decades, come Election Day, nonvoters like Davis will still probably be the norm. For every 10 adults eligible to vote, only in the fall of 2010 and 2014 midterm elections.

You have to go to the turn of the 20th century to find a midterm election when a strong majority of people voted, the right to vote was more and more white).

Every election cycle there's a lot of attention on Who voted and why. But there is another important question: Who is not voting – and what impact does that have?

The wealthy tends to vote more frequently. Nonvoters are more likely to be poor, young, Hispanic or Asian-American. Some research indicates that they are more likely to align with the Democratic Party.

It would be debatable whether or not it would be different It ignores and acknowledges.

"Said Jan Leighley, co-author with Jonathan Nagler of the book Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality, and Turnout in the United States.

Her research is not likely to be more effective, for example, to support a redistribution of wealth, social security net programs.

Hundreds of thousands of nonvoters want to vote, but can not.

In 2016, 4 percent of registered voters did not vote because of "registration problems," according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data. Many would-be voters face a range of barriers: vote ID laws, registration difficulty or criminal records. An estimated 10 percent of adults in Florida, for example, can not vote because of a felony conviction.

Some people who want to vote but can not be removed from the voting rolls. Across the country, the rate at which people are being scrutinized, a process historically intended to keep records updated, compared to a decade ago, according to a report from the Brennan Center published this summer. The analysis found 4 million more people were purged between 2014 and 2016 than in the equivalent period between 2006 and 2008.

Legal obstacles are an important part of the nonvoter story, but there are many millions of Americans who can vote and yet choose not to. Their reasons are vast: Some are apathetic or too busy. Others do not like their choices, they do not think their vote matters, they think the system is corrupt, or they do not think they know enough to vote.

NPR traveled to different states where they are not voting at high levels – age, income, education level, and clothes.

Vegas: The young and disengaged

Shelby Mabis, a stocky blonde navy veteran body, remembers taking a high school class in government, but said he did not learn anything about voting.

"I'm not sure what happens there," said Mabis, 23, outside North Las Vegas. And so he's never voted before.

Mabis is not unusual. There's a high density of people in their area who do not vote, as in many places.

"Keith Kawashima-Ginsberg, the director of CIRCLE, an initiative at Tufts University that studies" Whenever young people are surveyed, there is a significant lack of knowledge about how exactly the government works, and, therefore, how do they vote? youth civic and political participation. She recently conducted a survey of working-class youth, and found that nearly 20 percent of young people said they would not be able to vote.

Her research has found that a majority of young people do not think about voting. They also have major misconceptions about voting. Some think getting a vote.

But for Mabis, not voting is not just about education – it's about location.

"Right now, being away from home," he said, referring to Nevada. "Since I'm not here, I really feel like this is not my home."

Mabis grew up in Missouri, and that's where he registered to vote. But he said it was not easy to stay connected to Missouri politics.

Analysts say this is a commonplace – young people are more often than not, and often feel less invested in local elections.

Youth turnout nationwide for midterms is around 20 percent. For older adults, it's closer to 50 percent. When you look at who votes frequently over many years, the numbers look even starker.

In their interviews, they do not feel their vote matters, they do not care, they do not feel like they know enough to vote.

But in some cases, they are particularly eager to choose individual candidates instead of a party label. In 2016, many said they felt uninspired by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

So, like Jonas Rand, they did not vote for president.

"Said Rand, a senior who studies anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Rand follows the news closely, he considers himself a political activist, but he is not a fan of the current two-party political system.

"The system itself is stacked against the citizenry," he said.

He thinks Trump is a "fascist," but he does not see how voting for Clinton would have changed anything, pointing out that Nevada's votes in the Electoral College went to Clinton anyhow.

But if young people do not vote, they are less likely to be targeted by political campaigns. And that worries community activist Francisco Morales.

"It's no coincidence that politicians care a lot about Medicare and Social Security, Seniors vote all the time," said Morales, state director for the Center for Community Change Action.

But, he says, issues that millennials care about, such as student debt, are often overlooked "because politicians are not afraid of our voting bloc."

West Virginia: The class divide

McDowell County, W.Va., is the county with the lowest vote in the country in 2016.

In Welch, W.Va., the county seat, median household income hovers around $ 25,000 a year. Sixty-one percent of registered voters in McDowell County are nonvoters, who have voted in the last eight elections, according to a L2 vote, a nonpartisan vote file vendor.

Tammy Lester, a 42-year-old fast food worker in McDowell County, Va., Can not remember the last time.

"We are voting in McDowell County," she said, "on the streets in the rundown downtown with her daughter. "There's nothing … there's no jobs when our kids graduate, they have to leave."

Beyond a movie theater, a small pharmacy, and a couple of county offices, most of the storefronts are closed. A couple of years ago, the closest Walmart shut down, and now there's hardly any locals can buy fresh produce.

Lester said politicians always ignore her county. "We are last on everything," she said.

"What good does it do, though, when they'll promise you anything and then it's a lie," she asked rhetorically.

Lester, like many nonvoters, never went to college. She stopped going to school in eighth grade. Research has been shown to be the biggest and most important difference. Class is a more accurate predictor of voting behavior than race, ethnicity, gender or any other demographic factor, according to Jan Leighley. Leighley writes in her book Who Votes Now? that nearly 80 percent of high-income earners vote, compared to barely 50 percent of low-income Americans.

"I just do not think about my vote matters," said Josh Mullins, he's strolling along the street in McDowell County.

The last time Mullins, a 33-year-old unemployed restaurant worker, was elected in 2004 for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Nowadays, he sees no point, saying the overrules what people want.

"Hillary [Clinton] The Trump for President, "he said." To me it says … it was just the [Electoral College] Trump in office. "Voters in each state determined by the Electoral College.

Another major reason people say they do not vote is the time and effort taken away from other priorities.

"They're working several jobs, they're low-income, they're low-educated, they're younger and they're deciding on costs," explains Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida. who tracks turnout at the US Elections Project. "They decide they've got a lot of other things going on in their lives."

El Paso, Texas: Low Latino turnout

At the Bowie Bakery, El Paso's Segundo Barrio, or second ward, Christina Rodriguez has been tested with Mexican sweet breads, cakes, cupcakes, cookies and pastries. She ordered a batch of cookies for her 15-year-old's and made her way to the door.

Rodriguez, a 38-year-old single, working mom, is always on the go. It's why, she says, she does not vote.

"I do not know who's running," she said, laughing with a bit of embarrassment. "I should look into it, but, honestly, I have not given it a thought."

She does not have time, she said, to look up the candidates, research their platforms and head to the polls.

"I'm not convinced," she said. "I do not want to make a mistake."

Growing up, her parents never Voting, she said, was not part of the culture in this city where 80% of residents identify as Latino.

"Voting is often taught and married," said Lisa Wise, El Paso elections administrator.

Some immigrant families are still unfamiliar with voting. Experts suggest this might also explain why Asian-American voting is low, despite high education levels. The adult Asian-American population is largely still foreign-born.

"I do what I do to make my life better," said Rodriguez. "I do not depend on (politicians) to change things for me."

But analysts say low Latino turnout in Texas is not happening in a vacuum. Texas has long gone to vote in the country; 51.6 percent of Texans voted in 2016.

Research has shown that competition energizes the electorate, and is highly competitive, particularly in presidential years. Locals say they have a joke in El Paso that the only time a major presidential candidate passes through the city is when he's driving to New Mexico.

"Said Mindy Romero, director of the California Civic Engagement Project at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. "There are not those resources, money, and investment coming into the state to get every vote." This is also an issue in California, the state with the largest Latino population.

Broad political apathy seeps into local and statewide elections, too. At the Bowie Bakery in El Paso, Beto O'Rourke, is one of the most popular celebrities in his life. They did not know that if O'Rourke wins he would be the first Democratic senator elected from Texas in a quarter century.

El Paso has also had a history of corrupt elected officials.

Texas is undoubtedly one of the highest nonvoting states in the country, but poor Latino turnout goes beyond the borders of Texas.

More than half of eligible Latinos nationally do not vote. In the last presidential election, Latinos represents 12 percent of eligible voters nationwide, but only 9 percent of the overall electorate on Election Day.

Many analysts predicted that Donald Trump's offensive rhetoric about Latinos would mobilize records numbers of Latino voters in 2016, but turnout would be relatively even with 2012.

"You may be upset about somebody like Donald Trump and what are you hearing," said Romero. "But if you do not see how or why … politicians and the political landscape matters … you do not think you have agency,"

Romero points to two main reasons so many Latinos are nonvoters: the disconnect they feel with the political process and the anemic investment in outreach.

But Romero does not blame the Latino community, she and Leighley both point out that candidates rarely try to reach new voters.

"This idyllic notion is that campaigns are simply not true," said Leighley. "They need one more vote than their opponent, they will go to the people they want to vote on."

It's more expensive and time consuming to chase down infrequent voters.

Methodology

NPR used data from L2, a nonpartisan vote file vendor, to analyze and illustrate what differentiates nonvoters from frequent nonvoters. Because it is a file, it is limited to registered nonvoters, as opposed to unregistered nonvoters. We defined a number of people who voted in the last eight elections, and a number of people who voted in the six or seven of the last eight elections. Those eight elections include both primary elections and general elections, which means that the nation is struggling to get away from it. So, if someone voted for the last eight years, perhaps for Barack Obama in 2008 or Donald Trump in 2016, but did not participate in any other elections, they would be characterized as "nonvoting."