RE: The vanishing voter

[Paul Tiger]

Okay, I guess I missed something, probably was skimming and glazed over important stuff. Sorry, I am a bit rattled these past few weeks. I really need to uncomplicated my life and dump a few projects … Let me respond and clear out some of the repetition. Sorry if it becomes confusing, but it shouldn’t as we’ve all read this stuff before 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. [|>] [|>] but are we talking about people that have registered and not voted, or those that have not registered at all?   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. [|>] [|>] they may have not made a choice? What if they are registered as unaffiliated? This could mean that they have not made a choice in somebody’s eyes. I guess I need to look at the state stats again and see if they delineate between those that are registered and those that are not. A subjective opinion of not being able to choose could be an interpretation of what being registered as unaffiliated means. It is an opinion that I have heard stated by all major and minor party members, including people in the clerk’s office. That is that people that are registered unaffiliated have not made up their mind.   It could very well be that I have once again missed some important point about VAP, but I am unclear that we are talking about unregistered potential voters. If we are, then I am with you 100%! If not, and we are including potential voters registered as unaffiliated, then I will need to find a way to filter out those that did actually vote   FYI – the clerk (in my county) can be queried for statistical information about how many registered voters actually voted. The clerk can find out exactly who voted and who didn’t, but they should not distribute that data. The new clerk here is with me on this, even though her predecessor would sell anything to anyone. Both the old clerk and the new one are dems. I jammed personal privacy issues so hard in my campaign that they became an issue that the other candidates could not walk away from.     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; [|>] And that both major parties have failed to follow their own platforms and operate very much like each other. Newbies can’t see a difference between them. If they do care and what to be part of the process, they register unaffiliated, and at worst they cogitate and do nothing.   b.. that modern campaign techniques are a turn-off for some citizens who otherwise have an interest in public affairs;            [|>] which is usually (c below), beating up the other party and candidates. BTW – if we run TV ads, they need to be effective with the mute button depressed.   c.. that attack journalism has eroded trust and interest in partisan politics, particularly among young adults; [|>] [|>] and we do this too. Many of our candidates point a finger at the other two parties, or the system. Young people seem to be okay with attacks on the system (just as I am). It is impersonal. You can easily screw yourself if you attack a candidate or incumbent that is well liked (even if we consider that person ineffective or a sellout). Our opinion should not reflect a negative value. We can say that we can do amazing stuff, and talk about it, but not say that we will do better than the other guys or slam them for not doing as good of a job as we might.   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; [|>] [|>] Not sure that I agree with this. In legislative election years we hear about the candidates and races as much as ten months before, with lots of general coverage until about a month before elections and then it is unceasing. For presidential years, we hear about that race as much as two years before. Lower races in the same year may attract less attention I tend to think the opposite is true, in that Americans are tired of hearing about what legislators and candidates have or have not done, and what they are promising to do next. Continual sensory overload about politics.     e.. that the frontloading of the nominating system depresses not only turnout but election interest, information, and conversation in states with late-scheduled contests; [|>] [|>] Frontloading? Is that with manure? What was your opinion of the attempt to do away with the caucus system? As far as I can see, it was R & D infighting, but would have affected us too. I wonder if petitioning candidates on to the ballot would get more people interested and involved? (not that I support this)   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; [|>] [|>] I think that your earlier post has something about the declining number of television sets in a proportionate number of homes since the 1960s. This needs to be counted in a part of the equation as to who is tuning in. The TV is fast becoming obsolete for broadcast reception. The TV is the extension of the DVD and video decks, and cable. Cable has long coverage, but all at the national level. Local broadcasts of a political nature on cable are nearly non-existent. For the most part, the personal computer has taken the place of TVs in most households. There are two of each in my home. It is nearly impossible to have the same effect on the internet as you would TV. One is point to point and the other point to all. Fortunately, the Rs and Ds are using the internet in the same way that they use TV and it does not work. We do a better job here. We should stick with it, because we can’t afford TV and it may not be worth the $$$ spent.   g.. that registration closing dates and poll closing hours continue to keep some Americans from exercising their right to vote; and [|>] [|>] Colorado’s 29 day close for regular registrations is not a bad thing (IMHO). The clerk’s don’t have the bandwidth to certify all the registrants within a smaller time frame. They do allow special registrations up to the day of elections, but those are few. After the elections in Boulder, it was found that 17 dead people had voted, along with some other registration anomalies. I will agree that 8am to 4:30pm does cause a problem for most people.   h.. that Electoral College strategies serve to depress turnout and other forms of involvement (for example, election-related conversation) in non-battleground states. [|>] [|>] oh yeah and how do we fix this? 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. [|>] [|>] IMMAGRANTS! They are one of my two focal points. Immigrants that seek citizenship or have just become citizens; and high school students.   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. [|>] [|>] Aha! So does this mean that we have 2.2 million unaffiliated registrants? Or are these people that were registered period and simply did not 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. http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/main.htm [|>] [|>] Sorry I must have skimmed again. I need look at these stats and see if I can discern the registered but not voting figures.   The soft news 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. [|>] [|>] BINGO! Entertainment rules. The disaffected are not listening. We can’t make TV in any form our focal point. There are some LPers that think that we need to make a big splash on TV, and I think that no one will see it. I personally don’t think that making videos for public access TV is the same as wasting our efforts on commercial TV. People who watch public access are interested in something different, and it is not usually entertainment.   Well I hope this allowed you a little more along the lines of what I was thinking.   Dana [|>] [|>] Well I hope I haven’t made a complete ass of myself. I am getting well practiced at it.   paul