Why Are the Poor and Minorities Less Likely to Vote?

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/why-are-the-poor-and-minorities-less-likely-to-vote/282896/


Check-cashing stores and dilapidated storefronts dot Route 3 in Cincinnati. (Daniel Weeks)

CINCINNATI — It's 4 a.m. when the overnight bus from Pittsburgh rolls into Cincinnati station. With hours to go until daylight and more than a little fatigued, I join the small crowd of passengers sprawled out on the floor in one corner of the station. A pair of infomercials is playing on endless loop on the TVs overhead and I can only dream of falling asleep. An hour later, I stop trying and make my usual cup of gruel before setting off on foot through the drizzle into town—the wrong part of town, as it happens.

Heading out past the casino and north on Gilbert Avenue, I see office parks and museums give way to blocks of rundown rowhouses with broken windows and ground floors boarded up. There are seedy strip malls, vacant overgrown lots, and once-proud red-brick factories with faded marble molding and "For Sale" signs on the door. Trash has gone uncollected for some time, judging by the overflowing bins.

Few storefronts remain in business—a convenience store here, check casher there, and beauty supplier and furniture store further down. The Speedy Refund tax service silently awaits another tax season, when eager EITC filers will pack the place seeking "Cash Back Fast" (for a fee). Across the street, the Life Skills center promises "Help with dreams—Enrolling Now!" in the form of a GED. A dilapidated stone church next door is fenced off with fluorescent "No Trespassing" signs posted all around. At another former church nearby, all that remains is a crumbling steeple proclaiming the Father's glory. Strangest of all, on this average weekday morning there is hardly another soul in sight.

Continuing out along Route 3, I notice the scene begin to change. No longer are the streets and sidewalks busted up, the homes unoccupied or in disrepair. As I turn into a leafy lane, I come across a battery of dump trucks and heavy machinery laying down a new layer of fresh tar. Judging by the amount of men and machines assigned, it looks as if the job will be complete in time for lunch, leaving ample time to dry before the residents return from work. Sprawling, manicured lawns and curvaceous drives lead up to lavish homes with porticos and chimneys all around. One is a castle made of stone with turrets and lattice windows.

[Mike Nelson]

1. I didn't know "minorities" were less likely to vote...

...but the "poor" are not encouraged to vote. The working poor are dead tired after long hours at multiple jobs and sometimes have family demands. I think we should have a "Vote Day" holiday - and encourage everyone to vote, but Republicans don't like that and want voting to be harder.

[bigdarryl]

2. Personally I think it's up to the national Democratic Party to register these

People to vote.The democrats fall into the trap of only talking and campaigning about only the middle class.Look at Big Ed all he talks about is the middle class so if your a poor person and you here that from guys like this you are not going to be motivated to vote

[Fumesucker]

3. The fastest way to get the "middle class" to vote against you is start talking about "the poor"

The middle class as a group tends to subconsciously at least think of life as a zero sum game, if the poor get more it's going to be taken away from an already struggling middle class.

I'm not sure that attitude is fixable.

ETA: And let's face it, to a big extent the middle class is correct, the last thirty years have shown that nothing is going to be taken away from the rich for the poor so the middle class is finally noticing that they are the marks at the poker table.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. Well said.

[Kahuna]

7. Yep. I live in Newark, NJ and I'm surrounded by folks...

poor folks who can't be bothered to vote. I don't understand it. The Democrats tried for years to pander to the needs of poor folks and the result is what you said. As a result, the Dems have mostly abandoned trying to message to poor folks. Can't say I blame them. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

[TheKentuckian]

8. We "pandered" to the poor when?

[nomorenomore08]

12. Maybe the Dems haven't offered enough of an alternative to Reaganomics in recent decades?

I don't see how they've particularly "pandered" to the poor - as others have noted on this thread, it's always the nebulous "middle class" that politicians of both parties talk about.

[El_Johns]

16. wtf?

[Gormy Cuss]

21. Maybe you should read the Atlantic article.

While income and education levels were not recorded in the survey, race and age were major factors influencing who made it to the polls on Election Day and what kind of barriers they faced. Black and Hispanic citizens, for whom the poverty rate is close to three times that of whites, were three times as likely as whites to not have the requisite I.D. and to have difficulty finding the correct polling place. They were more than three times as likely as whites to not receive a requested absentee ballots, and roughly twice as likely to be out of town on Election Day or to have to wait in long lines. They were also substantially more likely than whites to report transportation problems and bad time and location as reasons for not getting to the polls, while white voters were the most likely to cite disapproval of candidate choices. Taken together, the surveys suggest that white citizens who abstain from voting do so primarily by choice, while the majority of minority non-voters face problems along the way.

Pander, my ass.

[Blue_Tires]

9. And if you want to look at it from the most cynical standpoint

the "poor" (and to a lesser extent the "middle class&quot don't sign big checks to donate to so-and-so's campaign...

And it's only going to get worse since unlimited donations have been upheld by the court as 'political speech'

[Drahthaardogs]

6. Unions were made up of the poorest of the poor. Miners paid in scrip,

dock workers exposed to asbestos, etc. They mobilized and unionized. The working poor of today are more service-oriented than industrial-oriented like those in the past, but they too must organize or nothing will get better for them.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. Excellent article. We've got to get money out of politics any way we can.

We also need to lobby our officials to open more and better-staffed polling places in previously neglected areas. It's an outrage that people are leaving the polls because it takes so long to cast a ballot.

[Brigid]

23. Publicly funded elections.

I have long felt that if we were to focus on that and get it done, it will go a long way toward making everything else fall into place.

[Egalitarian Thug]

10. The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class.

Keep 'em showing up at those jobs.

[El_Johns]

17. The middle class is there as the buffer class between the rich and the poor; to administer &

police the poor & keep them from rioting.

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. ...and finally to serve as sacrifices to the angry mob so that the guilty have time to escape. n/t

[B Calm]

19. Lot of truth in that! The rich probably think about

the French Revolution.

[mainer]

11. A sense of powerlessness and "nothing changes no matter what I do"

If you think your vote doesn't count, or that the rich will always override it, then why bother?

[redqueen]

14. This, and I'd also add the 'both parties are the same' mantra is also part of it.

The two parties are like 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee', as one person liked to put it.

[Glassunion]

13. As a minority and formerly poor

I can tell you that I rarely voted when I was younger. The reason was for a complete mistrust of my representatives. From the city/county/state level, all the way up to federal. Find me a candidate, that was truly a representative for the people they served and not a representative to whomever lined their election campaign's pockets and I will vote for them. That person is a rare one to find, and they usually lose.

The day that elections become publicly funded, voter turnout may improve.

[Orsino]

15. We have taught them very deliberately over the decades that their voting won't help them. n/t

[joeglow3]

20. Because the poor are smarter than us

They have seen the brunt of politics and realize that both parties serve big business first.

[Bandit]

22. Initiate "Vote By Mail" and all that may change

When getting to the polling place is so difficult and such a hassle why bother, especially when you see such little representation for your plight. "Vote By Mail" changed that dynamic in every state that utilizes it. Republicans figured that out decades ago. Democrats are still trying to figure out what is happening. Republicans mail out Absentee Ballots to every single Republican registered as such, and they get incredible turn-out of their people. Democrats still have their head stuck in the sand.