Interesting findings on voter registration from the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance — findings that suggest that, in many ways, democratic concerns are only truly being targeted in those states “in play,” turning national elections into a series of selective regional registration wars:
Voter registration stagnated or declined in many of the states that have not been intensely contested in the presidential election. Thirteen of the thirty-three states and District of Columbia that were not targeted saw their registration stagnate or decline between fall 2004 and fall 2008. For instance, registration declined in South Dakota by 5 percent since 2004 and slipped in New York by 2 percent. The crusade to reach out to new voters and bring them into the electoral process has skipped large parts of the country.
[…]
Registration in the largest and fastest growing states has been neglected. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the population in Texas expanded by 7 percent between 2004 and 2007, but the voter rolls grew by only 1 percent. Registration also lagged behind population growth in New York and Illinois. (Census Bureau data for 2008 are not yet available.)
There is a more general pattern: Registration trailed population growth in 17 of 33 uncontested states. What stands out is that many of these states experienced unusually large population growth. Indeed, registration rolls lagged behind population expansion in 6 of the 8 fastest growing states (including Arizona, Utah, North Carolina, and Georgia).
On the other hand:
Registration drives pay off. States that are singled out by the presidential campaigns are showered with resources to register voters and the impact is plain: 14 of the 15 most contested states expanded voter registration since 2004.
Increased voter registration in contested states consistently exceeded population growth: two-thirds of these states (10 out of 15) expanded registration at rates that were greater than the changes in their population. Registration grew in Florida by 9 percent since 2004 while its population expanded by 6 percent. Registration also outpaced population in Virginia and Ohio. The electorate in Nevada has been transformed since 2004 because of the 30 percent jump in registration; by contrast, its population grew by 10 percent. Put simply, investment by presidential campaigns and their allies pays off with increased registration beyond what the rising tide of population might have accomplished.
More Democrats than Republicans have been registered in 8 of the 9 most contested states for which there are data. More than twice as many Democrats have been added to the voter rolls in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. The Democrats won a critical component of the ground game in 2008.
The battle for election drives registration. For states in play, this means an avalanche of resources for registration. But for states that are on the sidelines, many citizens remain unregistered even in the fastest growing and largest states.
Discuss.
This could just be a feature of our electoral college that the Founders did not think of. While the Electoral College makes campaigning in pretty much every state a necessity, it also disenfranchises the votes of party line voters in certain states. Why would a Republican even register to vote in LA or D.C.? Why would a Dem register in certain parts of Texas?
There might be benefits to this though. Republicans or Democrats registering in areas where their candidates have no chance, but voting in primaries pushing more moderate candidates to the general.
Probably the Founders didn’t forsee the urban-rural divide. Folks in downstate Illinois, for example, have more in common with folks in Missouri or Iowa, but their voices are drowned out by Chicago because Chicago has the sheer numbers.
We have similar problems in Minnesota, where the war between the Twin Cities and the rest of the state is neverending. Perhaps we should lobby our legislatures to implement a state-level form of the Electoral College?
Squid I would say none of the politicians we have at any level nowdays are capable of cleaning up the belly button lint of the Founding Fathers. Any reform they undertook would probably jack shit up worse. IMHO.
> Perhaps we should lobby our legislatures to implement a state-level form of the Electoral College?
One approach would be to decide a state’s electoral college votes using its house districts, with the votes for the senate seats going to the candidate who gets the most votes state-wide.
I’d only go for this if we eliminate gerrymandering.
Here’s a CATO event video on the relatively new book, “Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State” by Andrew Gelman, Professor of Statistics and Political Science, Columbia University, with a follow on commentary by Michael P. McDonald, George Mason University and Brink Lindsey, Cato Institute. It runs in total about 1:29:30, but is well worth a viewing.
Lindsey’s comments beginning at about 50:30 are particularly interesting vis a vis the culture war business, mostly based on his book “The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America’s Politics and Culture”.
It’s partially just another natural consequence of our “one man, one vote, plurality wins” voting system. It’s been mathematically proven that our current voting system is the one least likely to produce good results. It also gives us the lovely spoiler effect, where two similar candidates will cause the minority candidate to win (as Perot did for Clinton and Nader did for Bush). It’s the reason we only have two parties in this country, and that we can never vote “for” someone, just against the other guy.
I don’t blame the current generation of Reps and and Dems for this any more than I blame individual Russians for the collapse of the USSR. They’re part of the larger system, just as we are. We’re all victims until the larger system changes. Anything else (like the above mentioned Congressional district thingies) are just patches on a sore, not a cure.
http://rangevoting.org/
The other half of the problem is that our current system for policing election integrity is a joke. Everyone who’s running for election (or has been elected) seems to prefer gaming the system to competing for votes (which I don’t blame them for – it’s easier, and certainly much more subject to personal control). The FEC much more enforcement power to guarantee basic rights, and its senior staff needs to be selected in a “guaranteed to be non-partisan” manner, perhaps chosen by lottery from a pool of retired Judges.
Oh, just to clarify, what I meant by the last paragraph is that we need to stop using foxes to guard the hen house. It’s crazy to think that people who receive a benefit if they get elected will be perfectly impartial & fair as to the method for selecting who gets elected. The FEC needs to be run by people who aren’t running for office, never will, and don’t owe anyone in office any enforceable favors.
Really? Mathematically, you say?
I would think that potential Democratic voters don’t register themselves to the extent that Republican voters do, on account of their, uh, sketchier lifestyles. I mean, it’s harder to register when you’re in prison, or dead, or non-existent, so, you know, you really need some help.
#9 Brock:
I think ‘winner take all district voting’ produces two political parties, coupled with a non-paliamentarian system of government (i.e., the US executive is elected seperate from the legislature, where in a parliamentarian system the executive comes out of the legislature).
In a proportional parliamentarian system you get an Italy with multiple political parties; in a winner take all district parliamentarian system like Canada you get at most three parties.
A third party in the US – a party of the great man or a party of the great idea – tends to get absorbed into a two party duel. The structure of the government doesn’t allow anything else, really.
(My source is various government textbooks.)
For some unknown reason, I read Brock and I hear echos of Lani Guinier. Maybe it’s
that does it?
“Discuss.”
Welcome to the electoral college.
“While the Electoral College makes campaigning in pretty much every state a necessity”
It doesn’t look like that.