Thread: California: Gap growing between state's voters and nonvoters

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/22786.html

Daniel Weintraub: Gap growing between state's voters and nonvoters
By Daniel Weintraub -
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, September 14, 2006
As Californians prepare to head to the polls this fall for the fifth year in a row, the gulf between those who vote and those who don't is becoming wider than ever.

Voters are older, whiter, wealthier, better educated and tend to own their own homes. Nonvoters are younger, more ethnic, poorer, not as educated and tend to be renters.

Not surprisingly, given those characteristics, those who vote are generally more conservative than those who do not go to the polls, especially on issues involving taxes and spending.

Those trends have been evident in California for some time. But the gap is growing more pronounced as immigrants who cannot vote or choose not to do so make up a larger share of the state's population, according to a study released Wednesday by Mark Baldassare, a political scientist and pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California.

"Our political participation hasn't kept pace with our population change," Baldassare says. "Having a democracy that's highly dependent on voters making big decisions at the ballot box, I think it raises concerns about the ability of those who go to the polls to represent the best interests of all Californians."

Voters may say it doesn't matter, that their role in elections is not to look out for their fellow residents but to make decisions they believe are in their own best interests. It might even seem presumptuous for Baldassare to suggest that noncitizens, including illegal immigrants, deserve to have their views considered at all in setting public policy.

But it's still worth knowing what those views are, if only because over time, more and more immigrants will become citizens, and more who already are citizens will register to vote. To the extent that their take on issues and candidates remains the same as they assimilate into our civic culture, their increased participation has the potential to profoundly change our politics.

Baldassare teased the numbers out of voter registration data and polls conducted from 1990 through 2006, including surveys based on thousands of interviews.

Since 1990, he says, the state's population has grown by 25 percent, as has its population of those 18 and older. But the electorate has grown by only about 15 percent. The result: Just over half (56 percent) of the adult population is registered to vote, compared to 65 percent in 1994.

The most obvious explanation for this decline is immigration, since noncitizens are not eligible to vote. Indeed, the share of the adult population that is eligible to vote has shrunk from 87 percent in 1990 to 82 percent today. Of the 12 million adults who are not registered to vote, nearly half (5 million) are not citizens.

Those numbers in turn have a direct effect on the electorate's ethnic composition. Among voters, 72 percent are white, 14 percent Latino, 6 percent Asian and 5 percent black. Among nonvoters, however, 63 percent are Latino, 24 percent are white, 8 percent Asian and 3 percent black.

That demographic gap extends beyond citizenship and ethnicity.

Among Californians who are frequent voters, 62 percent are older than 45, 77 percent are homeowners, 53 percent are college graduates and 56 percent have household incomes of $60,000 or more.

Among those not registered to vote, 76 percent are younger than 45, 66 percent are renters, 17 percent are college graduates and only 18 percent have household incomes of $60,000 or more.

It turns out that the two groups, voters and nonvoters, also see the world differently.

Likely voters, for example, are fairly evenly divided on the ideal size of government. Forty-nine percent say they would prefer a larger government even if it means paying higher taxes, while 44 percent favor a smaller government and lower taxes. But among nonvoters, the question is no contest: two out of three prefer more services and higher taxes.

And the two groups hold Proposition 13, California's landmark law limiting the annual increase in property taxes, in different regard. By a margin of 56 percent to 33 percent, voters believe the measure, passed in 1978, has turned out to be a good thing for the state. But nonvoters, by a margin of 47 percent to 29 percent, believe the limit has been bad for California.

Baldassare also found that nonvoters are less likely to favor term limits, more likely to support increased spending on health and human services and public colleges and universities, and would like to see more of the education budget spent on kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools that serve the poor. On local issues, nonvoters are more in favor of school construction bonds and tax increases to pay for transportation.

Although the state's population continues to change rapidly, the gap between voters and nonvoters looks to be with us for a while. By 2040, Baldassare noted, whites are expected to be just a third of California's adults, but experts believe they will remain a majority of the state's voters for at least 25 years.

For the foreseeable future, then, California's growing population of nonvoters will continue to depend on the kindness of strangers and, in all likelihood, will continue to be disappointed in the results.

About the writer:
The Bee's Daniel Weintraub can be reached at (916) 321-1914 or at dweintraub@sacbee.com. Readers can see his daily Weblog at www.sacbee.com/insider

The illegals are here because when 65% of the eligible were voters the illegals looked at the resulting policy and said screw you we are coming anyway. Now they ave the gall to complain that they are not represented. What about the poor Americans whose rights were not defended?

Not surprisingly, given those characteristics, those who vote are generally more conservative than those who do not go to the polls, especially on issues involving taxes and spending.

If California government today is representative of how conservative voters vote, the thought of what we'll get when the non-conservative voters gain in numbers is beyond frightening.

Originally Posted by CountFloyd

Not surprisingly, given those characteristics, those who vote are generally more conservative than those who do not go to the polls, especially on issues involving taxes and spending.

If California government today is representative of how conservative voters vote, the thought of what we'll get when the non-conservative voters gain in numbers is beyond frightening.

It's already frightening looking at some of the people holding office in California, and many of them are far from conservative. I guess it means get ready for anarchy and socialism as a mainstream political force in California. That should help quickly transform the state into a third world sewer.