non-voters

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Wed Jan 15 10:16:36 PST 2003


----- Original Message ----- From: "Wojtek Sokolowski" <sokol at jhu.edu>

Luke:
> Nonsense! Everyone knows the general public fails to vote
> for the same
> reason some disaffected lefties choose not to vote--the lack
> of a genuine,
> compelling leftwing alternative to the Dems and Pubs.

-Then how do you explain that Nader and the Greens, who can be considered -a leftwing alternative to Republicrat duopoly did not get even 5 % of -votes needed to qualify for federal funding? If memory serves, the -populist rightwinger Ross Perot got some 8%.

Um, Wojtek, Luke was using irony :)

But I think people are too dismissive of non-voters as a resource. It takes work to do outreach, but a large pool of those non-voters are not apathetic necessarily but recent immigrants who just need help getting connected. American history is littered with examples of the explosive effect of new immigrant non-voters finally hitting their political stride and having large impacts on elections.

--- Nathan



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