Stephen Gheen: The difference between winning and losing? Voter registration!

The following blog post is courtesy of Make It Count friend Stephen Gheen. Stephen enjoys crunching campaign numbers for fun and telling candidates their margin of victory (or defeat). The 2008 Obama campaign made the mistake of telling Stephen that his election predictions were more accurate than theirs, and we haven't heard the end of it since.

Stephen was Board of Elections chair for Gaston County, where he once presided over an election decided by the drawing of a poker chip from a hat, and once convinced the local paper to include a voter registration form in the Sunday edition - an effort that was wildly successful in registering new voters.

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A growing number of North Carolina citizens anxiously anticipate the 2016 election cycle will usher in the full implementation of the Voter Identification Verification Act passed in 2013. Voter ID, the elimination of same day voter registration, and a shortened early voting window form the core of a larger menu of reforms, all designed to entrench and preserve conservative Republicans in political power by effectively disenfranchising citizens who are more progressive philosophically.

What is the projected impact of Republican reforms? Some 300,000 registered voters could be excluded by the Voter ID requirement alone according to a study by the State Board of Elections in 2013. Among those who actually voted in the 2012 general election 46% without apparent ID were ethnic minorities compared to all registered voters. Black voters without apparent Voter ID totaled 36%, while 23% of all registered voters. Democrats constituted 58% of the pool at risk, compared to 43% of all registered voters.

Disenfranchisement penetrates even deeper. A study of other aspects of the NC Act published on Dartmouth College’ website summarizes the breadth of the Act’s impact:

Specifically, we find that in presidential elections . . . black early voters have traditionally cast their ballots disproportionately often in the first week of early voting, a week eliminated by VIVA; that blacks disproportionately have registered to vote during North Carolina’s early voting period and in the run-up to Election Day, something now prohibited by VIVA; . . . that the special identification [exception] for . . . voters who are at least 70 years old disproportionately benefits white voters; and, that prior to the implementation of VIVA young blacks were disproportionately more likely than whites to avail themselves of the opportunity to preregister to vote.

Almost exclusive focus has gravitated to VIVA’s impact while an even larger group of potential voters has been largely ignored – the unregistered voter. In North Carolina, estimates of unregistered voters ranges to well above one million of the Voting Eligible Population (VAP). For example, The Voter Participation Project estimates, as shown in the chart below, that there are over 600,000 unmarried women in North Carolina who are eligible to register and vote, but who remain outside participation.

	Rising American Electorate					Unmarried Women
State	% of VEP	Registered	%	Unreg.	%	% of VEP	Registered	%	Unreg.	%
Colorado	49%	1,149,895	62%	695,784	38%	22%	546,725	66%	283,499	34%
Florida	58%	4,818,782	60%	3,269,845	40%	26%	2,184,986	60%	1,452,963	40%
Iowa	45%	601,659	59%	413,038	41%	23%	325,929	62%	198,167	38%
North Carolina	56%	2,439,168	63%	1,406,290	37%	26%	1,147,794	64%	656,032	36%

Data Source: Current Population Survey: Voting and Registration Supplement, 2014. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.

Crucial to this discussion is the fact that unregistered voters, both in North Carolina and nationally, are more progressive that the general body of registered voters, and substantially more progressive on average than the pool of registered voters who actually vote in most elections. In fact, unmarried women are the leading supporters for progressive change (70% of registered unmarried women voted for President Obama in 2012). Registering and voting just half of the available pool in North Carolina could have the almost immediate impact of electing more progressive candidates on a statewide basis.

The failure to register and vote progressive eligible citizens is not just limited to unmarried women. Political scientists have identified a core of unregistered voters defined as the Rising American Electorate (RAE). They are: unmarried women of all ages, all people of color and millennials. Across America this election cycle, the RAE will account for a majority of all voters. Add an appreciable share of unregistered RAE, in North Carolina and nationally, and 2016 could represent a watershed event in American history.

Can we register enough new voters to impact NC? Certainly. President Obama won NC in 2008 by registering new voters and remained in contention in 2012 by registering some 260,000 new voters in North Carolina between April 2011 and the November 2012 election.

With Obama’s last election, a concerted, well organized, statewide effort to register progressive new voters has ground to a halt. What is needed is a new organization dedicated to one proposition, registering new voters who will support progressive policies. That organization needs to operate on a continuous basis, and be equipped to track demographic changes in North Carolina, account for and communicate with the continuing ebb and flow of new citizens entering North Carolina, identifying younger citizens who will be turning 18 within the next election cycle and provide information and assistance in registering to vote. Complete with its own ground game to register voters, the organization and educate other allied organizations on the best practices in North Carolina registration.

Could it work? Of course it can, but the potential barriers to registration and voting must be addressed. The California Voter Participation Project surveyed non-registered voters to determine why they do not participate. These points are taken from and highlight their findings (highly edited):

• Reasons for not voting: . . . The perception that politics are controlled by special interests is widely held among infrequent and nonvoters and represents a significant barrier to participation. 66 percent of infrequent voters and 69 percent of nonvoters agreed that this is a reason for not voting.
• Work hours: 52 percent of infrequent voters and nonvoters work more than 40 hours per week; 16 percent of infrequent voters and 15 percent of nonvoters work more than 50 hours per week. 
• Voter registration: Nearly half of the nonvoters surveyed say they have been registered to vote before, but not at their current address. 18 percent say they thought they registered through the DMV; among API nonvoters, nearly one in three say they thought they had registered through the DMV. 
• Friends and family: Among nonvoters, only half say their friends vote. 51 percent of nonvoters grew up in families that do not discuss political issues and candidates. Latino, African American and API nonvoters were less likely to live in a pro-voting culture than nonvoters generally.
• Information barriers: Information comprehension is a barrier for infrequent voters and nonvoters; trustworthiness of election information is also a challenge. . . . Among nonvoters, 39 percent said it is hard to understand and the same number, 39 percent, said it is untrustworthy. African American infrequent and nonvoters are more distrustful of election information than infrequent and nonvoters generally.

What is required is personal contact, finding and contacting every targeted unregistered voter.

Make It Count provides an early effective counter to registered voters who may be disenfranchised by VIVA. Salvaging every registered voter at risk is critical, but it is not, in isolation, the strategy that will move North Carolina mainstream politics in a more progressive direction. Progressives must engage in voter registration, independent of both parties, who have largely abandoned voter registration except has delivered by their candidates, if at all.

A more progressive North Carolina awaits the effort.

Stephen Gheen
stgheen@outlook.com
(919) 264-8520