Mr. Gans gave us an unsettling picture of voting participation in the United States. It's far below that of many other countries. Despite higher voter participation in the past two Presidential elections, voters did not bother to vote in many of the other races in 2004 and 2008, primaries held separately from the presidential primaries.
Studies in past decades showed a correlation between increased voting and higher levels of education, earnings, etc. But even though there are more college educated people today than in the 1960's, voter participation is down. In fact, it is down despite improvements in all the factors mentioned in the study, with the exception of marriage. Married people tend to vote, but, as Mr. Gans joked, that's not a primary reason to encourage people to marry!
Mr. Gans painted a disturbing picture. Young people tend not to vote: it's mainly older people who vote. So, we're heading into a generation that is voluntarily disenfranchised. We don't vote because we don't trust politicians: Gans reeled off a string of politicians' most memorable lies.
Not voting, moreover, does not indicate contentment with the status quo. Studies show that the outcomes of elections might have been different if all the nonvoters had participated. (I'm kind of happy that they didn't elect Ross Perot, but still...). It's the undereducated, poorer segments of the population whose voices go unheard.
After speaking for nearly an hour, Mr. Gans fielded questions from the audience for another half hour. We're very grateful that he was willing to come to NYC and offer us the benefit of his insight into the voting habits of Americans and the electoral process.
This was our first time renting the UU church in Brooklyn Heights. It's a beautiful venue and it felt wonderful to be in that setting. Yes, an organ lesson upstairs sent some churchy music down to us, but fortunately we did have a microphone, so Mr. Gans' talk was audible over the organ.
It was also great to see some new faces. One couple was visiting Brooklyn from Arkansas and gave us some fascinating information about the humanist movement there. We hope to see the local folks again at our future meetings.
