Episode 132: Why People Don't Vote Week: You Can't Vote if You Don't Register -- So Why Don't Nonvoters Register?

American Democracy Minute

Why People Don't Vote Week: You Can't Vote if You Don't Register -- So Why Don't Nonvoters Register?
Today’s Links
Articles:

Knight Foundation - The Hundred Million Project study
CNN/SSIS Poll - Americans’ confidence in elections has faded since January 6
Brennan Center - Poll: Majority of Voters Confident Midterms Will Be Conducted Fairly, with Reliable Results
Associated Press - Many remain critical of state of US democracy: AP-NORC poll
FiveThirtyEight.com - Why Many Americans Don't Vote
NPR - Poll: Despite Record Turnout, 80 Million Americans Didn't Vote. Here's Why
CNBC - ‘I don’t plan to vote ever again’: The psychology of why so many people don’t vote, even in 2020
American Progress - Increasing Voter Participation in America

Groups Taking Action:
Movement Voter Project, Voto Latino, Black Voters Matter, Vote.org

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.

We continue our “Why People Don’t Vote Week” with why eligible citizens don’t register to vote. Polls show that it’s a combination of apathy, available time, lack of information, and other social and systemic barriers.

In a 2020 poll of Nonvoters by NPR, 29% of nonvoters surveyed said they didn’t vote because they weren’t registered. This and other polls show that nonvoters consume less news media, and are less engaged in the community than voters, so they may not see announcements on how, when and where to register and vote.

A larger Knight Foundation Study entitled “The Hundred Million Project” after the 100 Million Americans who don’t vote in national elections, found that 5% of nonvoters cite not being registered, and 7% say they don’t have time to vote. These reasons rank below “Don’t like the candidates” and “Voting Doesn’t Matter” in most studies, but if you’re not registered, not liking the candidates is a mute point.

Apathy is the biggest reason people aren’t registered. “I’m not interested/Don’t Care” is the top reason, but “I don’t know how,” “It’s Too Complicated”, “I keep forgetting” and “I’m Too Busy,” are all cited factors.

What can be done to reach and convince nonvoters to register? We have some proposed solutions in our next report. We have links to the studies and groups taking action at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org. For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.