Tuesday, July 3, 2007

44.96%

In 2005, Virginia only had 44.96% of registered voters turnout...but this was 1.98 million people. Virginia currently has a population of 7.6 million. 75.4% of those are over 18, or about 5.73 million (but not all can vote e.g. aliens, felons..)
If 5 million citizens in Virginia can actually vote, that means that over 3 million did not vote. Why did they not vote? I know politics-as-usual tells us that they will not vote no matter what we do, but I believe that is because non-voters feel disenfranchised with the good ole boys network.

You have to speak about issues that affect all Americans, not just voter profiles. Even if you get 10% of non-voters to come out, that is 300,000 votes. Most non-voters would vote Democrat, no doubt.

Let's channel that energy.

1 comment:

John R. Cole said...

Tired voters not turning out is an old problem: "If you think yourself too wise to involve yourself in government, you will be governed by those too foolish to govern." ~ Plato

Someone more recently said something to the effect that: "If you say I don't bother to vote - you mean - I don't care what they do to me."

It is in the nature of politicians (and children) to test the limits. When they find out there are no limits, it always ends badly, all around.