I realize that I'm not the first person to bring this up (h/t to Raechel Guest), but I was extremely disappointed to see the low turnout for Tuesday's election.
What makes the turnout on Tuesday so disappointing is that this level of voter apathy is not common for the City of Waterbury. For example, in 2001 the city of Waterbury had a turnout of 50.3%. That means that there were 24,000 votes cast from 48,000 registered voters. since then, the turnout has dropped precipitously, falling all the way to 24.00% this week.
I know that there are some out there that would like to consider this situation isolated to a few districts or groups. Unfortunately the loss of interested voters has occurred city wide. To illustrate my point, I have included the turnout figures for each polling location during the past three elections.
| District | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|
City Wide | 40.59% | 32.37% | 24.00% |
71-1 | 58.53% | 49.64% | 39.51% |
71-2 | 51.32% | 41.80% | 32.75% |
71-3 | 53.38% | 44.95% | 33.22% |
72-1 | 23.66% | 19.19% | 13.33% |
72-2 | 26.52% | 17.98% | 12.98% |
72-3 | 30.56% | 20.88% | 14.44% |
72-4 | 41.85% | 32.19% | 23.10% |
72-5 | 32.20% | 24.44% | 17.05% |
73-1 | 53.55% | 44.98% | 34.32% |
73-2 | 55.96% | 44.84% | 32.61% |
73-3 | 41.21% | 31.94% | 23.42% |
73-4 | 44.25% | 35.95% | 26.98% |
73-5 | 55.28% | 44.23% | 37.60% |
73-6 | 40.29% | 34.21% | 24.92% |
74-1 | 48.06% | 38.75% | 28.29% |
74-2 | 39.63% | 31.71% | 23.41% |
74-3,4 | 50.05% | 40.37% | 32.21% |
75-1 | 15.76% | 12.30% | 08.13% |
75-2 | 39.33% | 30.64% | 23.13% |
75-3 | 18.54% | 12.11% | 08.34% |
75-4 | 23.82% | 16.70% | 08.53% |
75-5 | 20.86% | 15.64% | 09.64% |
As you can see, every district in the city has had a drastic drop in turnout. Out of the 22 polling locations in the city, Blessed Sacrament school (73-5) shows the smallest proportional drop off in voters. Sadly, they still showed a loss of 32.52%.
In 2005 649 voters showed up out of 1,174 registered. In 2009, 449 voters showed up out of 1,194 registered. When you consider that the district increased its voter registration by 20, there should have been 660 people voting to maintain the turnout of 2005.
I find it downright appalling that every single district in the city has had it's turnout slashed by at least 1/3 over the past four years. Furthermore it is almost unconscionable to see that 4 of the 22 poling locations on Tuesday had a turnout of less then 10%!
While it's easy for me to rant about these terrible numbers and what it means for our society, democracy, common sense, and so on, there has to be a solution out there somewhere. And to find to solution, we need to identify the problem.
So, why did no one show up?
1)The cross-endorsement? While that may have been a reason for some people, I cannot accept that as a reason for over 9,000 people to sit this one out.
2)General voter apathy? Again, I have a difficult time accepting this as a standalone cause, due to the fact that voter turnouts of 50% or more used to be common in Waterbury elections.
3)Lack of coverage? I remember reading the newspaper growing up and seeing several articles a day on the campaigns, often on the front page. I also remember the newspaper printing a rather large copy of the ballot so people could decide in advance who they were going to cast their votes for. Both of these practices have come to an end in recent years.
4)Negativity in the campaigns? While I can see this turning a lot of people off, I have no problem saying with a straight face that the Republican campaign stayed positive. Everything that I saw my fellow candidates and I put out there was based on facts. We didn't call people names, or try and have people arrested.
5)Something else? Is there a reason that I've missed?
If those are the problems, then the question becomes, how do we fix it?
In terms of distributing information, I know that Raechel and John Murray run their own Waterbury based blogs, and John has the Waterbury Observer which comes out every month. There are also several shows on the Public Access channels, but none of those shows reach a wide audience, especially with the proliferation of TV providers that are not required to carry those channels. Further, one can only assume that the current economic troubles affecting newspapers like the Courant are also taking a toll on the Republican-American.
With this situation, only the people who are truly interested in politics will find the information, the casual observer will probably not take the time. This is something I see as a problem that stretches far beyond the boundaries of Waterbury. As they say, though, all politics is local.
It seems to me that we need to find a way to get the citizens of Waterbury to care about politics again. We need to find a person or people to inspire them and get them excited about the prospect of voting. But where do we find such a person, and how do we get that message out there?
I try and do my part with this blog and my show, but I can't do it alone. Who else is willing to step up to the plate and make a difference? Who's willing to join me in this quest?
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