Thursday, February 19, 2009

NYC voter participation in freefall

From True News from ChangeNYC.Org:

The City's election results from a half-century ago look like misprints. 3.46 million out of the City's 3.53 million registered voters, a staggering 98%, cast ballots in the 1952 Presidential election. One year later, 93% of registered New Yorkers voted in the Mayoral election. Today, the bottom has fallen out for the City's electorate. Only 27% of the City's registered voters cast their ballots in the last mayoral election in 2005. 39% of registered voters took part in the Mayoral election of 1997. Voter turnout was less than 20% for City Council elections in 1999.

7 comments:

faster340 said...

I wonder why! Back in the day people believed in the government and what they were doing and thought it was their American duty to vote.

I think people don't believe in this country anymore and don't care.

I for one try to get out and vote as much as I can!

Anonymous said...

I think people don't believe in this country anymore and don't care.
--------

That is because every opportunity is scripted to the level of meaninglessness.

Our politcal life is not unlike the spiritual life of the Roman Empire. Everything to its smallest detail was under the thumb of someone else.

There was no incentive to do or try anything.

Have hope: The brittle structure eventually fell apart.

Anonymous said...

Citizens who refuse to vote have no right to complain about anything.

That said, the decline can be traced to a deliberate effort to destroy the voters' confidence in their ability to control events.

The political types - in office, the party hacks, the media - have spent years of effort to drain voters' interest government and to make all events seem inevitable and not under the control of the voters.

Democracy is all about who gets to control events: the voters, or the elite.

The elite are absolutely determined to have control, the voters are too easily distracted by the superficial.

KG2V said...

One question - the 2 stats don't really compare - because of things like "Motor Voter", registration has gone up, but the number of voters usually doesn't (as a nationwide trend)

Most voter registration drives merely end up signing up people who don't vote

The ONLY stat that really counts, and the one that the Pros use is "%VAP" or what is properly known as "Percentage of Eligible Voting Age Population"

In general, you will find that turnout of VAP stays fairly constant, except for exception elections (This year being one of them)

As for my quals on this - I'm one of the folks who writes software for one of the network "Decision Desks", and I get to hear the analysts discussing this for months at a time, and how changes in the various laws have changed both the number of registered voters, and voting patterns

Anonymous said...

why bother when your local government is bought and sold as freely as a quart of milk at a bodega?

Anonymous said...

Why should a republican in NyC vote??? granted giuliani and bloomberg were "republicans" but other then that its a joke.The machine is strong unless you live in the Middle Village area or Staten Island You might have a chance.

Anonymous said...

If you voters aren't going to take enough interest in your own candy store
then the thieves are going to fill their pockets with a lot of your sweet goodies!

YOU GET WHAT YOU ALL F-----G DESERVE!

Apathy makes for a fine bunch of assholes!