The report in Sunday's
Herald that Miami-Dade and Broward counties are home to more than
475,000 registered voters who have never cast a ballot was not all
that surprising. The so-called deadwood, who represent a quarter of
South Florida's voter rolls, are everywhere in America.
So who are these people?
Nearly two-thirds of them are women, six in 10 are white. As for
which party is carrying the most dead weight, let's just say that
the Democratic Leadership Council should stop sniping at Howard Dean
and have a gut check on turning increased voter registration into
turnout. Some of the deadwood really are dead; others have moved
away. Most troubling are the tens of thousands who are still among
the living -- and still living here -- but who simply don't show up
on Election Day.
The article, and the politicians quoted in it, focused on the
financial costs, saying that the counties should spend less money on
new voting machines and more on ``purging the rolls.''
Frankly, all the talk of voter-purging gives me Katherine Harris
flashbacks. Yes, we should get the dead people off the rolls, but it
would be nice to hear one or two politicians talk about attracting
more live voters, too.
A February 2002 Census report estimated that while 63.9 percent
of Americans were registered in 2000, only 54.7 percent voted. In
other words, of the 202 million-plus Americans who were eligible to
vote in the most hotly contested presidential race in a generation,
nearly 100 million chose not to -- including two-thirds of 18- to
24-year olds, half of 25- to 44-year-olds, a third of those over 45
(and, apparently, Arnold Schwarzenegger). And if you're wondering
why we hear so much about Social Security and Medicare at election
time, the report pegged voter participation among 65- to
74-year-olds at 69.9 percent.
It could be worse. According to the International Institute for
Democracy and Electoral Assistance, U.S. voter turnout has averaged
about 48.3 percent over the last 50 years. That's much better than
Djibouti, at 28 percent, and slightly better than Mexico, at 48.1
percent. But it's worse than Japan (69 percent), Canada and France
(68 percent), the United Kingdom (75 percent), Israel (80 percent)
and Uzbekistan (86 percent). The top-ranked country, Italy, scored a
92.5. (France, Mexico and Italy have compulsory voting laws, though
IDEA says that enforcement varies).
As for why Americans don't vote, the census found that one in
five registered nonvoters said that they were ''too busy.'' Another
15 percent cited illness. The third biggest group -- 12 percent --
cited cynicism, saying that their vote wouldn't make a difference.
That was true in every age group except the elderly (who most often
cited a ''dislike for the candidates or issues,'' and registration
or transportation problems.) It was especially true among voters
under 45.
It's easy to dismiss nonvoters as too lazy or socially
disconnected to care about who's running the country. And there's an
argument that people who don't even know who their members of
Congress are shouldn't confuse the process by casting a ballot.
But in defense of the deadwood, the fact is that standing in line
at a polling place when you're late to work is a tough sell,
especially if you're not confident that your vote will matter.
When citizens do act on issues they care about, they are
dismissed as ''focus groups'' or labeled Dangers to the Party by
milquetoast, establishment ``pols.''
If offered a chance to do something, most Americans will bite.
The grass-roots energy of the Dean campaign proves that, and, in a
perverse way, so does the nutty California recall -- where people
are clearly itching to act, even if it means turning Sacramento into
Planet Hollywood.
joyannreid@hotmail.com
