Michael Pollak wrote:
>
>
> which can't both be true, because non-voters have a distinctly different
> demographic profile than voters. So one of these propositions has to be
> wrong. Which one? Is sure would be nice to know before you bet the bank
> on them.
>
The basic error in _both_ propositions is that they treat humans
unhistorically and mechanically as though they were objects in a
laboratory experiment, in which it is possible to vary just one element.
If a non-voter voted, he/she would not be a non-voter. So what we have to look at is not the _present_ attitudes of non-voters (whatever those may be) but at the conditions under which a non-voter would not be a non-voter. Those conditions, not the non-voter's opinions now, would determine the vote of the (now) voter.
Carrol