The vanishing voter

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 08:27:38 -0800

Okay I thought I better respond per Pauls post on this subject:
 
Paul Stated:
>From my time campaigning I have come to know the value of recognizing the
lost cause.  I truly believe that trying to converting registered voters to
the LP is the mother of all lost causes. I don't think that it is wrong to
educate them, but I don't want to focus energy on them.
 
Paul the information I provided clearly stated  that the people I want
to reach is those who have not made a choice to what they want to be,
much less have they ever voted.
 
The results of there survey's state that the voting age population
that has become disinterested is from ages 18 to 29 these are the
one's we should be educating b/c they haven't made a political choice.
 
I don't know if I explained it well enough so here it goes again.
 
In more simple terms okay-
We found that the vanishing voter is being caused by the following reasons:
 
 
 
.
  a.. that the weakening of the political parties as objects of thought and loyalty has reduced the incentive to participate, particularly among lower-income Americans;
  b.. that modern campaign techniques are a turn-off for some citizens who otherwise have an interest in public affairs;           
  c.. that attack journalism has eroded trust and interest in partisan politics, particularly among young adults;
  d.. that soft news has reduced the level of election coverage which, in turn, has reduced the frequency with which Americans think and talk about the campaign;
  e.. that the frontloading of the nominating system depresses not only turnout but election interest, information, and conversation in states with late-scheduled contests;
  f.. that the declining audiences for election telecasts are in part a function of sharp cutbacks in the broadcast networks' coverage, which has reduced the number who "inadvertently" tune to these telecasts;
  g.. that registration closing dates and poll closing hours continue to keep some Americans from exercising their right to vote; and
  h.. that Electoral College strategies serve to depress turnout and other forms of involvement (for example, election-related conversation) in non-battleground states.

I thought that by breaking these problems down and putting our attention
towards changing them we can reach those we have not reached.
 
If we can change our campaign techniques then we should, If we can make educational
pamphlets to interest the low income americans we can up our number's.
 
I gave out the wrong link for some of the information I gave out. According to Colorado's
VAP we have 3,067,000 million people in the VAP.
Of that number 2,274,152 million people are already registered to vote. So we have 74.1% of the
VAP voting already. We want the 25.9 % of the VAP that is not registered to vote or have made
a political decision. That is the voter in the age groups of 18 thru 29 that is your non registered.
These numbers are from the presidential election of 2000.
 
The sof tnews story was to show what has happened to broadcasting of
political views, that people no longer tune there t.v.'s in b/c of campaign
techniques, and the soft news presented. In soft news they explain people
still want hard news, it makes them listen. But b/c there is so much entertainment
in the news sector today that those interested have shut there t.v's off. They are no
longer getting the fact's so they no longer tune in in election years.
 
Well I hope this allowed you a little more along the lines of what I was thinking.
 
Dana
 
 

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