It’s now a truism that the recent election was won by armies of grass-roots staffers and volunteers approaching voters one-on-one to make the case for President Obama and supportive House and Senate candidates.\u00a0 I was one of those canvassers.\u00a0 I talked to several hundred voters in working-class city precincts.\u00a0 Because these neighborhoods are transient, canvassers would start by determining whether the target voter still lived at the indicated address. And where the listed voter had moved on, we inquired whether the new residents were registered to vote, and if not, offered them the opportunity to register on the spot.<\/p>\n
For a canvasser, finding an unregistered citizen who is eager to register is the day’s high point; conversely, arguing with an eligible voter who won’t register can be a real downer.\u00a0\u00a0 Dogged non-voters fall into a couple of categories.\u00a0 Some are too immature, addled, or\u00a0 overwhelmed to contemplate adding another duty to their list of obligations. \u00a0 Some display an aggressive blend of ignorance and cynicism,\u00a0 insisting that it doesn’t matter who gets elected or their individual vote doesn’t matter.\u00a0\u00a0 You learn to recognize these types and not spend a lot of time arguing with them.\u00a0 You move on.<\/p>\n
But there are others, and part of the canvasser’s art is to recognize the unspoken concerns of potential voters and tactfully address them.\u00a0 Alienation from civic activity is hardly a fringe phenomenon:\u00a0 year after year, barely half of the eligible American electorate votes, even in high-profile national elections.\u00a0 Political partisans find it easy to disparage non-voters.\u00a0 But feeling superior doesn’t get us anywhere.\u00a0 As campaigners, our job is to get inside the head of the reluctant voter and tease out what the barriers may be.<\/p>\n
We find people who wrongly think they are ineligible to vote because of a criminal background — and maybe claim to have been given that misinformation by their probation officer.\u00a0\u00a0 We find people who don’t want to expose their low literacy to the scrutiny of a stranger at the door or at a polling place.\u00a0 We still find people who think that being unregistered to vote makes them immune from being called for jury service.<\/p>\n
Beyond all of that, I’ve concluded that an awful lot of people are inhibited by the sheer mechanics of voting.\u00a0 This can be hard to relate to if you grew up in an environment where everyone votes.\u00a0 Whether you see it as a duty, a privilege, or an adventure, if you’ve always voted you may find it hard to believe that anyone could have a mental block about the process, or that anyone would allow such reservations to trump their motivation to improve their circumstances and their community by voting.<\/p>\n
On my most memorable day,\u00a0 I spent 20 minutes persuading a woman to register. \u00a0 I worked on her for that long because I could see from the TV show she was watching and from her conversation that she actually had well-developed political opinions.\u00a0 But she had never voted.\u00a0 She was 71 years old.<\/p>\n
When we canvass, we answer all kinds of questions — perfectly reasonable questions, many with simple answers,\u00a0 but which the prospective voter never had a chance to ask before.\u00a0\u00a0 What time are the polls open?\u00a0 Do I have to bring an ID?\u00a0 How long will it take?\u00a0 What if I can’t read the ballot because I’m legally blind?\u00a0 Who can I call if I need a ride?\u00a0 Can I bring my children in with me?\u00a0 Do I have to cast a vote for every office or can I just vote for President?\u00a0\u00a0 What if I make a mistake marking the ballot?\u00a0 What if I can’t get there during voting hours?<\/p>\n
And some take the responsibility so seriously that they feel\u00a0 unequal to the task, and ask,\u00a0\u00a0 How do I know who I should vote for?\u00a0\u00a0 As a partisan,\u00a0 of course, I could just tell them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But in truth, I sympathize with anyone trying to make sense of a political race on the basis of unrelenting reciprocal attack ads on television.\u00a0 Voters need tools to cut through the fog to exercise their franchise intelligently.\u00a0 So I prefer to say, well, I am going to leave you this voter guide that talks about some national issues and what the candidates think about them.\u00a0 But isn’t there someone you respect and who shares your values? You could talk with them about how they plan to vote and why.\u00a0 That’s what voters do.<\/em><\/p>\n We live in a world chock-full of diverse subcultures and experiences.\u00a0 On some level we constantly define ourselves by what we incorporate into our self-image and what we choose not to incorporate.\u00a0 If I got a flyer in the mail urging me to take up martial arts or calligraphy or rooting for the lacrosse team, I might well think:\u00a0 well, that’s interesting, but I don’t know anything about that, it would be embarrassing to be the only ignorant person there,\u00a0 and it would take time and effort to learn about it.\u00a0 I’m okay with being a person who does not do that sort of thing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em> And whereas at age 20 my excitement at learning something new might overcome my trepidation,\u00a0 at 40 or 50 the learning curve looks more forbidding.\u00a0\u00a0 Learn how to program an iPad?\u00a0 Maybe not.\u00a0 Learn how to use an optical scan voting machine?\u00a0 Maybe I’ll pass. \u00a0 Additionally, the “horse race” mentality that pervades media coverage of elections contributes to the impression that politics is just another pastime that some people follow and some don’t.\u00a0 Consciously or not,\u00a0 potential voters get a pass to define themselves among the “nots.”<\/p>\n But with a tutor, the learning curve can be surmounted.\u00a0 So a good canvasser is, among other things,\u00a0 a tutor in the arts of democracy.\u00a0 Civic engagement results from hard- and well-fought election campaigns.\u00a0 Ultimately, canvassers don’t just win elections.\u00a0 They do the vital work of democracy,\u00a0 helping our fellow citizens, one by one, formulate their self-image to that of a voter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s now a truism that the recent election was won by armies of grass-roots staffers and volunteers approaching voters one-on-one to make the case for President Obama and supportive House and Senate candidates.\u00a0 I was one of those canvassers.\u00a0 I … Continue reading