State’s voter participation far worse than reported

Drawing on data from the secretary of the state’s office, Connecticut’s Hearst newspapers reported last weekend that while voter participation in the state’s municipal elections long has been poor, participation in this month’s municipal elections improved slightly, from 32 to 33%. But in fact participation is far worse than that and is always far worse than is officially reported.

For one, the percentages from the secretary’s office are based on the number of people who are registered to vote in the state — 2,130,142 as of Election Day — not on the total population of adults eligible to vote. According to the U.S. census, Connecticut’s population of legal residents of voting age eligible is much greater than 2,130,142. It is 2,803,538, not counting the estimated 113,000 people living in the state illegally.

 So Connecticut has about 673,000 people who are eligible to vote but who are not registered.

That is, about 24% of Connecticut’s eligible adult population couldn’t care less about elections. So the voter participation data from the secretary’s office must be discounted by 24% to produce the real participation rate, and the real participation rate in the recent municipal elections was not 33% but more like 25%. 

Similarly, though Connecticut’s voter participation rate in the 2020 national election was officially reported as 80%, the real participation rate was more like 61%, and though the participation rate in the 2022 state election was officially reported as 58%, the real rate was more like 44%.

The implication here is that nearly 40% of Connecticut’s legal adult residents don’t care much about their country and more than half don’t care much about their state.

What explains the lack of participation in municipal elections?

Of course municipal government may be considered less important than state government, which in turn may be considered less important than national government. But then voters may have more contact with and influence on municipal government than the others.

What explains the lack of participation in elections generally? That is, what explains the lack of caring by so many people even about their country and state?

One might like to think it is because people are disgusted by political leaders and alienated from politics. If that is the case, then people at least would know something about their government. 

But it is more likely that participation in elections is low because civic engagement and patriotism are declining. Many people can’t identify major elected officials in the state and their towns. Young people long have graduated from high school without knowing what the three branches of government are, nor when the Civil War and the world wars were fought and what happened during them, nor anything about the heroism and sacrifices of the country’s armed forces in defense of the nation’s freedom and the heroism and sacrifices of the civilians who worked to expand that freedom.

Indeed, many Connecticut residents and Americans generally take their freedom and standard of living for granted. 

It all seems like the old corruption of prosperity. A country ascends with the basic virtues of work, learning, thrift, faith, and hope, only for later generations to consider their prosperity to be the natural order of things, not something that has to be constantly earned again.

Yes, freedom isn’t free. Nearly everyone has to do some work to maintain a community, a state, and a country. 

Woody Allen said 80% of success is just showing up. What will become of Connecticut and the country now that half the people are not showing up?

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)