----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 9:26
AM
Subject: The vanishing voter
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
