Registering dissent

Voter registration has been all the rage on this campus and across the country. Somehow, many groups, including The Chronicle, have been suckered in to repeating the myth that voter registration is both non-partisan and good for democracy. Close your eyes, or rather continue to close your eyes, if you wish to preserve the image of the feel-good, “non-partisan” project of the century—voter registration drives.

Democrats have a much easier time than Republicans in targeting their party’s potential voters. It’s no secret that areas with higher population density tend to lean highly Democratic whereas rural areas tend to be more Republican. At first it looks like a fair fight; both sides have their own areas of increased support. But it’s much easier for voter registration activists to target areas of high population density because it costs so much less per voter to register a new voter. You can send out one person to visit 100 potential voters in an urban area in two hours. To do the same number in a rural area would easily take three times as long. So, the “non-partisan” benefit of registering voters proves to be cheaper for Democrats.

Democrats also have an easier time targeting affinity groups. Democrats’ affinity groups tend to be more identifiable by observable traits such as race. Although Republicans have affinity groups with equally strong support, such as gun rights supporters, unless they are already a member of the National Rifle Association it is difficult for Republicans to identify potential members of the group. Democrats know that some easily identifiable minority groups vote over 95 percent for their party. Therefore, Democrats know that if they register 100 people of their target minority group, 95 will be Democrats and five will be another party. Even with the worst case scenario that all of the remaining five vote Republican, the Democrats know that they will gain 90 net votes. If the Republicans target an observably differentiated group, rural men, they will have less success. Such groups that Republicans would target at best vote 65 percent Republican and 35 percent Democrat; thus, the Republicans will only gain 30 net votes for every one hundred people registered. Therefore, it is much more difficult for Republican sympathizing groups than Democrat sympathizing groups to register new voters whose preferences match their own.

Democrats naturally enjoy that the public has accepted that voter registration is a societal benefit. Republicans are forced to pay lip service to the idea that voter registration is an apolitical panacea of civic involvement. They are afraid of the shadow of the poll taxes and other inherently undemocratic acts in the country’s past. The press dutifully repeats the hogwash of the parties, since they can’t find a way to cast two sides to form a debate.

The truth is that increasing the number of people who vote can be dangerous, even if it keeps the party balance similar. The people who currently vote care more about voting than the people who don’t, as demonstrated by their actions. It’s not say that those who don’t currently vote are inherently less intelligent or less valuable people, but rather that they care less about voting and are thus less likely to be politically aware. If the media and our political parties cajole people into voting that otherwise wouldn’t have voted, we can surmise that these new voters will be more easily swayed by low level arguments. This means that politicians and the media will have an incentive to dilute the quality of civic debate to target those with less political knowledge. Although it’s true that these new voters will be more politically literate now that they are involved in the political process, they will bring down the median level of sophistication of the total pool of voters, and thus lower the rhetoric of contemporary politics—the USA Today effect if you will.

So, the end result of the “get out the vote” effort is more registered Democrats, a more easily fooled electorate and a lower level of political debate. I understand that this outcome pleases many, but it is far from a clear benefit for society. We need to remove the non-partisan label from voter registration efforts and reconsider our laws that allow “non-partisan” groups to engage in this clearly partisan activity while maintaining a tax-exempt status.

Paul Musselwhite is a Trinity junior.