Disgust with system could be key to low voter turnout
| • | Special report: The Vanishing Voter |
| • | Graphic: Voting patterns |
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer
Second of an occasional series of stories exploring Hawai'i's poor voter turnout and solutions for change.
The people who arguably need the assistance of government the most are the ones least likely to show up at the polls to select that government, the latest census figures show.
Although almost any adult citizen can vote today, U.S. Census figures show significantly lower voter turnout among those just reaching the voting age, those without jobs or who work for low pay, those who do not own their homes, and those who are single, divorced or separated.
By contrast, according to a paper written for the U.S. Census Bureau, "those with higher stakes in society are the most likely to go to the polls — older individuals, homeowners and married couples."
Across the nation, the Census has found that as Americans age and grow more affluent, they are more likely to vote. It goes all the way from 15 percent voting by those aged 18 to 24 and making less than $5,000 a year, to 69 percent voting by those 75 and older making more than $75,000 a year.
Ethnically, whites tend to vote at higher rates than non-whites. The Census statistics for Hawai'i confirm this, but are otherwise of limited value since the Census lumps together Asians and Pacific Islanders, and separates Hispanic and Black voters.
In the Islands, high turnouts of Americans of Japanese ancestry are legendary, and during the 1960s helped lead the ascendancy of the Democratic Party in Hawai'i.
Of every 100 men and 100 women in Hawai'i who are citizens of voting age, about five more women than men will go to the polls. The situation is similar across the nation.
To register to vote, you need to fill out and send in a voter registration affidavit. You will find one in any Verizon phone book, and on O'ahu in the 2002 Paradise Pages. Just tear it out or make a copy. Forms are kept at all City or County Clerk's offices, U.S. Post Offices, public libraries and many state offices. There's a copy in the State of Hawai'i tax booklet. You also can register when you apply for or renew your driver's license. The form can be downloaded from the State Office of Elections Web page. Deadlines for registering to vote in the 2002 elections are Aug. 22 for the primary election and Oct. 7 for the general election.
The Census has not issued detailed reports for Hawai'i, but nationwide figures indicate that both men and women who are married or widowed vote at significantly higher rates than those who are single, whether separated or never married.
How to register to vote
Home ownership is also a significant factor in voting. Renters voted at only 60 percent the rate of homeowners. Census data also indicates — as one might expect — that people who have lived in a community for five years or longer vote at a much higher rate than newcomers.
Sick of politics
Whatever their background, many Americans agree that they have grown so weary of politics and politicians that they have chosen to turn their backs on the process.
"Voter turnout is abysmal in a supposed Democratic society," Kane'ohe resident Robert Harris said. "It is my opinion that this is a direct result of the poor performance of our elected officials."
"Personally, I was so dismayed at the scandalous acts of our elected officials," said Alvin Noguchi, of Mililani. "To me, you are taking a chance with anyone."
Not voting because of poor choices is a recurrent theme, particularly among people not in government office. Others see the same limited menu, but have the opposite prescription. If more people took note of issues and voted, the system and the people running it would change, they argue.
"Let us all remember that it is our vote that chooses the people who make the decisions that affect our lives, careers and loved ones for many years by their decision," Kailua resident Ruth Dias Willenborg said. She said she votes in every election, and took both her children and grandchildren to the polls to teach them the importance of participation.
But that's a declining habit.
"A concern I have is that you could have an entire generation of children growing up with parents who have never voted," said Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono, a Democratic candidate for governor.
Activist Mililani Trask, who helps Native Hawaiians obtain affordable housing as executive director of the Gibson Foundation, said many may have given up on government.
"When people register to vote, it's telling you that people believe in the franchise," she said. "We had one of the best turnouts (nationally) for years in the Islands. ... But now there's a sense that there's a great deal of corruption. There's not a sense that we're cleaning things up.
"People are worried about income, about shelter and food, and they don't really see anyone who's going to turn it around."
Sticking with issues
Political figures often argue that issues will bring people back to the polls.
Republican governor candidate Linda Lingle said she believes education and her proposal for decentralizing the state schools system will excite voters.
"We need to be finding and talking about issues that are important enough to them to get them out to vote," Lingle said. "The candidate has to be talking about issues important enough to care about."
Hirono said she is particularly concerned about getting more women to vote. She said that whenever she meets with women's groups, she encourages them to go out and involve other women.
"With the high number of women in the workplace in Hawai'i, it is troubling that women don't vote in higher numbers," Hirono said. "I think all of us should vote. It is the first responsibility of being a citizen."
Democratic governor candidate D.G. Andy Anderson said confrontation and brutal honesty are needed.
"I don't think there's any more believability in the politicians," he said. "They have misstated the truth, they have blatantly lied. They have spoken in shades of gray.
"If you want to create excitement, what we need is confrontation between us. We need to go toe to toe, like a championship prize fight. It's up to us to get up there and slug it out and say something. And it's up to you people (the media) to hype it, and to make sure we support (positions) with the details."
The people who run elections often say they feel that if they can simply make people understand the importance of voting, and make it easy for them to do so, they'll show up in greater numbers.
But running an aggressive statewide voter education campaign is expensive. The state Office of Elections was frustrated when it asked the Legislature for $200,000 for voter education, and got just $25,000. Not nearly enough for the task at hand, said state elections chief Dwayne Yoshina.
He said elections officials also are beginning to understand that making voting easier may not be enough because it's never been simpler to register. You can find registration forms at libraries, driver license registration offices, on the Internet and in the phone book. You can show up at the polls to vote on election day, or ask for a mail-in absentee ballot, or vote days before the election at clerk's offices. But still voter numbers go down.
Making it easier
Oregon has instituted an all-mail election, and voter turnout did not revive. In Washington and Nevada, ballots can be cast for 21 days before a voting deadline. Many states, including Hawai'i, allow "no excuse" absentee voting, meaning you don't need to explain why you can't show up at your polling place.
Making it easier still has not gotten more people to the polls.
"Not only do (some liberal voting programs) not enhance turnout, the evidence is that they actually hurt turnout," said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, a national nonprofit group that studies voter issues.
Spreading out the election from a single day to several days or weeks "diffuses the mobilization from one single day," Gans said. He said he feels that voters need not be coddled. "We're not demanding enough of our citizens."
In some past elections, there does seem to have been one magic bullet: registration.
If people register, there is some evidence they will show up at the polls in roughly equal numbers, no matter what their age, financial condition or ethnic status.
Census 2000 figures indicate that 85 percent of the Hawai'i residents who said they were registered voters also said they generally voted. At the polls, however, those numbers were shown to be overstated.
Hawai'i had massive voter turnout — between 90 and 100 percent of registered voters — in the 1960s, but the turnout has dropped. The state Elections Office reports that registered voters came to the polls in the 70 percent range during most of the 1990s, and that turnout dropped to 58 percent of registered voters in 2000.
Getting registered
Trask, who participated in a massive effort a few years ago to get Native Hawaiians registered, said the program succeeded in getting 100,000 registered.
Anecdotal reports suggested to organizers that actual voting was much lower.
Their registration indicated that they wanted to vote, but their not showing up at the polls indicated they couldn't find anybody they were willing to vote for, Trask said.
"I don't think it's voter apathy," she said. "I think it's voter disgust."
Two centuries ago, most Americans were excluded by law from voting — because of race, because they were poor, because they were female, because they were slaves. Even in the Hawaiian kingdom's Constitution of 1864, voting was limited to those who were male, adult, owned or leased land and could read.
In those times, Hawaiians voted at a rate of 90 percent or more of registered voters, said Hawaiian historian Jon Osorio, a professor at the University of Hawai'i's Center for Hawaiian Studies.
"There was a high degree of participation because voting was something Hawaiians began to see as their only avenue into power," Osorio said. "That may be why so many Hawaiians voted. There really were things to protect."
It was a time when Hawaiians saw their chiefs dying out, diseases wiping out the population of commoners, lands passing to foreigners running sugar plantations, and their very nation threatened by the Reciprocity Treaty, which allowed sugar duty-free into the United States, but also cut off revenues to the nation by limiting import duties for goods from America.
Late in the 1800s, "for many Hawaiians at least, the idea of participation in elections was vital because it was really the only thing they had left," said Osorio, who is writing a book on the subject.
Today, many in Hawai'i and across the nation exclude themselves voluntarily from the polls —particularly those who are disadvantaged in different ways. It is an odd reversal from a time when the disadvantage thronged to the ballot box to seek justice or change.
Gans said the voter disconnect in America dates to the advent of television, and became obvious in the mid-1960s. It's a long-term problem, and there is little that can solve it in the short term, he said.
To repair voting, citizens need to understand their governance system and be involved and committed to it, he said.
Among his solutions is a comprehensive politics and public affairs curriculum in schools, from the third grade to the 12th. A single civics class in one year of school isn't enough, he said.
Some of Gans' other suggestions:
- Require students to read newspapers and be tested on them.
- Consider implementing a mandatory year of national service.
- Control candidates' unlimited access to television for political ads.
- Improve news media coverage of election issues.
Despite the need to bring the vanished voter back into the picture, a free society can't ignore that "voting entails the right not to vote," Gans said.
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