Theory of the Non-Voter
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Non-voters are the biggest (potential) voting bloc in American politics. In midterm, state and local elections, more eligible voters choose not to exercise their franchise than to do so. Pundits and political sociologists ignore non-voters. Nobody polls them. Nobody asks them why they don’t vote. Nobody asks them what issues they care about. Nobody asks them what it would take to get them to vote, or who they would vote for if they did. Whether this lack of interest in non-voters is due to a lack of imagination or contempt based on the belief that they are lazy and apathetic, the result is that we don’t know much about the political leanings and motivations (or lack thereof) of the majority of our fellow citizens. There are tens of millions of them. They are an untapped resource and, until recently, there has been little attempt to reach out to them. Democratic Party strategists largely assume that there is…
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