October 29, 2012

The Enthusiasm Gap, or Institutionalized Voter Indifference

Most any poll you see these days makes a distinction between registered voter results and likely voter results.  One has to wonder whether this is the worst part of our nation's democracy: the fact that one party's only chance at winning is to make sure that discrepancy is a large as possible.  We have seen many different explanations as to why voter turnout tends to be weaker among certain groups, but we have to ask whether the fact that the people reporting on elections and public affairs are hardly representative of the constituency has anything to do with disaffection among minorities.  See also: Univision staging their own debates, lack of women debate moderators, the near uniformity of newsroom demographics.

Anyway, we'll be traveling overseas again over the next few weeks, so posting will be light and sporadic.  As a result of our travel plans we have already cast a ballot.  Let's just hope the right guys win on Nov. 6th so they let us back in the country.  What?  You didn't know that the passport office checks your voting record and submits it to CBP?

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