Voter-Turnout Efforts Won’t Pay Off on Election Day

With Election Day just over one month away, the outcomes of the presidential campaign and many other races are still in doubt.

Somewhat easier to predict, sadly, is the likely failure of a host of philanthropic efforts to increase voter turnout, especially among young people. No matter how well-organized or well-intentioned these activities have been, the state of the political process and many other influences of modern culture mean that much of the money being put into voter-recruitment won’t pay off in November, and some of it may not have any effect for many years.

Since the 2000 election, when only 42 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds cast their ballots — an all-time low turnout among that age group — foundations and nonprofit groups have poured millions of dollars into research, education, registration campaigns, and other activities to persuade young people to go to the polls.

New organizations with catchy names, such as Voter Virgin and Smackdown Your Vote!, as well as older ones like Rock the Vote, have intensified their efforts and are planning to spend $40-million this fall to get out the vote. Political parties are also mounting efforts to attract new voters.

At first glance, those efforts seem to be paying off. Polls taken last spring show that more college students planned to vote this year and more were following the election closely than was the case four years ago.

But will they really show up? The results of this year’s Democratic Party nominating process are not encouraging.

Although the former Vermont governor Howard Dean explicitly appealed to young voters, the turnout of 18-to-30-year-olds in the early primaries (when the nomination was still up for grabs) was lower in 2004 than it had been four years earlier, despite a surge of participation in the Iowa caucuses. Part of the reason might be that the “war on terrorism,” the issue on which Mr. Dean staked his candidacy, does not interest young people as much as other issues, such as the cost of higher education or the availability of good jobs. That also bodes poorly for November’s balloting, which is shaping up as a referendum on the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

In addition, young Americans today know less about — and have less regard for — the nation’s civic traditions, including the importance of voting. Numerous surveys have shown that many young people cannot identify the principal officeholders in their states, what government agencies do, or how citizens are expected to act. According to the last national test of educational achievement, only 11 percent of high-school seniors demonstrated they were “proficient” in history and today’s average college graduate knows only as much about politics as the average high-school student did 50 years ago.

One reason: Today’s students are likely to take fewer courses in government than those a generation ago did. And the content of these courses is apt to be heavier on social-science analysis of the political system than on the kinds of practical information (and calls to civic duty) that would energize a young person to vote. As a result, even using a voting machine or finding information about candidates’ positions often presents a challenge to would-be younger voters.

In recent years, major philanthropies, such as Pew, Carnegie, and Knight, as well as government agencies, such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education, have poured money into efforts to improve civic education in America’s schools. But even if their efforts lead to widespread adoption of better curricula, the results are not likely to be seen at the ballot box for many years.

Nor are the activities now under way to register new voters and get them to the polls apt to produce much improvement in turnout, unless the American political system becomes more engaging.

Election campaigns now rely more heavily on the news media, mail, and telephone appeals than on face-to-face recruitment of potential voters. What’s more, to rise above the din, these messages often have to be strident, turning off or confusing people who might otherwise have cast their ballots. And, as the members of the American Political Science Association’s Standing Committee on Civic Education and Engagement observe in a forthcoming report, the outcome of the presidential election is such a foregone conclusion in so many states (and in most Congressional districts) that many people may hardly experience any campaigning.

None of those features of American political life is apt to change in the near future. And it’s that failure of the political system that is the reason so many efforts promoted by nonprofit organizations to inspire voters haven’t worked either, most notably, the National Voter Registration Act — better known as the motor-voter law, which made it easier for people to register when they were getting driver’s licenses.

Perhaps just as important, however, foundations need to recognize that today’s young people are particularly likely to shun party affiliations and view officeseekers cynically. Far more see volunteering and other forms of community service as better ways to deal with local (or even national) problems than participating in political activities. According to a recent poll by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, only 35 percent of college students believe voting for president is “a way to bring a lot of change in society.”

Not surprisingly, as Jane Eisner, a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist says in her new book, Taking Back the Vote, that disaffection with government gives politicians even less reason to focus on issues that might concern the young and motivate them to become more involved.

But people who volunteer are also more likely to vote and take part in other civic activities later in their lives than those who don’t. So do those with more education, even if they do not learn enough about how their government works. And perhaps the best thing about the young is that they won’t stay young forever, with the result that their concerns become more like those of older voters and carry more weight with politicians.

Consequently, despite all the money and effort foundations and other nonprofit groups have committed, little can be done about low voter turnout among young people, except to wait until they grow older.

Leslie Lenkowsky is professor of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University and a regular contributor to these pages. His email address is llenkows@iupui.edu.