Why Americans Don't Vote

by Frances Fox Piven

Now in paperback, a masterful account of why so few Americans vote and of how our electoral process works to keep it that way--updated to include an analysis of this year's election results.

Genres: Politics, Sociology, Nonfiction, History, Theory, Research, Social Science

325 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Frances Fox Piven is an American professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982. Piven is known equally for her contributions to social theory and for her social activism.

Reviews

[stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read this for my social democracy seminar, and it ended up being the basis of my term paper that semester on the youth vote.

then i started actually giving copies of this book to my friends who said they didn't vote for various reasons, but was finally told that was annoying. (hah!) but the thing is, i absolutely believe the thesis of this book, which basically was proven in the 2004 election. and not only that, it assures that people will stay in power unless people get "angry enough" (remember, this was written before 9/11) and that this benefits republicans more than democrats, because angry liberals tend to do things like donate to greenpeace rather than work the polling sites.

it's a fascinating slice of american life and the way we are manipulated, even when we say we aren't going to be part of the system that is manipulating us. one of the most influential books i've read, and the reason i vote in every single election that i can.

also: frances fox piven: genius.

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough and at times dense reading, but the last chapter is the distilled gem.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

These authors have become politicized! Conservatives have attacked their works (most academic research never becomes visible to the extent of that of Piven and Cloward). The focus of this work is why Americans don't vote at very high rates--and why political leaders don't mind. Not sure how compelling the argument is, but it does provoke thinking about the issue. In that sense, the volume makes a useful contribution.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Claremont Review of Books

The progressive take on non-voting rests on two assumptions. First, it assumes that many would-be voters are deterred by registration requirements. Second, it assumes that the rest, because they lean so heavily to the left, are alienated by moderate parties and their campaign themes. A hard Left turn, then, could presumably gain votes, not lose them for the Democrats or Naderite third parties.

This interpretation has been so reassuring to American left-liberals that they have consistently resisted scattered evidence clearly at odds with it. In the late 1980s, for example, observers like Ruy Teixeira and the University of Cincinnati’s Stephen Bennett pointed out that from 1960 to 1980, registration requirements were liberalized, yet turnout continued to decline anyway. Nor did turnout surge in the 1990s, even though by Piven and Cloward’s own admission, “historic barriers to voter registration…were largely abolished” by the motor-voter law. And polls showed that non-voters, instead of having distinctively leftist political views, were actually a lot like the rest of the population. Nader, Dean, and others soldiered on, nonetheless.

The 2000 and 2004 presidential elections ought at last to lay this sagging interpretation to rest. These contests offered a near perfect test of the two assumptions underpinning the progressive view: registering and voting were less costly to citizens than ever; and unambiguously “progressive” candidates were in the race. Since 1984, political groups have poured substantial resources into getting people to register and vote. These efforts reached a high point in 2004, when armies of activists explored the best methods for encouraging voters.

......

This interpretation has one grand implication: if non-voters were somehow reintegrated into the electorate, U.S. politics would move dramatically to the left. As sociologist Ruy Teixeira puts it, this has been “virtually a religious principle of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition and various other left-leaning organizations.” The left-liberal Nation has trumpeted the claim since at least the mid-1980s. Ralph Nader proposed to base his 2004 presidential run on appeals to (presumptively leftist) non-voters as well as independents. He blamed non-voting largely on the first explanation offered by Piven and Cloward: “Obstacles, and deliberate manipulations to undermine the right to vote.”

Michael Moore blamed it on the second: “there is no real choice on the ballot.” And third-party types aren’t the only ones to believe this. In 1993, establishment Democrats pushed successfully for a “motor voter” law to encourage voter registration, expecting to reap electoral gains. Champions of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign insisted that a candidate from the Democratic Party’s left wing could win if he energized left-leaning independents and non-voters. For journalists, certainly, the idea that high turnout favors Democrats is an inveterate and much beloved theme.

.....

Third, many of the new voters in 2004 were Republicans. Even though Kerry had the easy pickup of many of Nader’s voters from 2000, Bush won almost as many new voters as Kerry did in Ohio, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, more new votes than Kerry in Virginia and Pennsylvania, half again as many as Kerry won in Florida, nearly twice as many as Kerry added in Missouri, and over three times as many as Kerry added in West Virginia. A large chunk of the formerly non-voting population turned out not to be natural leftists, after all.

In retrospect, none of this should have come as a surprise. It’s true that in the past some voting procedures have clearly been designed to discourage people—and certain people more than others—from voting. But there was always something disturbing about the claim that even after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, registration procedures managed to deter tens of millions of Americans from voting.

Piven and Cloward charged, “For the less well educated and the less confident, the application process can be humiliating” and too difficult to overcome.

But in these same years, people with the same demographic characteristics successfully applied for credit, registered their children in school, secured mortgages, filed job applications, had cable TV installed, and bought cell phones and pagers, all of which require the same amount of effort, if not more.

Claiming that these people could not handle the voter-registration process is simply extending the soft bigotry of low expectations to a new subject.

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Eye-Opening

Piven and Cloward offer an intelligent, yet readable discussion on the downsizing of the American electorate.

They claim that having low voter participation helps the controlling factions of the political parties remain unthreatened.

They include a history of voter participation and representation in all levels of American politics and the factors that still leave some groups underrepresented today. A very insightful and enjoyable read.

C. Alexander

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[Adam Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book about how we have gotten to a place in American history where less than 50% of Americans vote in our electoral process. Piven and her husband document the beginnings of this decline in the disenfranchisement of black voters after the Civil War, techniques that were also then used on whites who did not own property. After 1896, this transmuted into voter registration legislation that disproportionally exiles the lower classes, including much of the African American population and poor whites. They also show that disenfranchising the lower classes has been a way to keep the powerful in power, and a way in which the conservative Right in particular has held onto its power (the GOP has proposed most of the so-called voter ID bills that disenfranchise the poor). As Paul Weyrich said in 1980 (Weyrich was the founder of the Heritage Foundation and the architect of the Christian Right), "I don't want everybody to vote. If I might speak candidly for a moment, quite frankly our advantage in elections goes up as the voting populous goes down." Why is this? Because the poor tend not to support the Right, at least not exclusively. Non-voters in 1980 and 1984 would have prevented Reagan from being elected President, and they also strongly favored Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. Piven, however, is much less partisan than this summary makes it seem. Her chief interest is in documenting the history of voting and voter disenfranchisement in American history, and there is plenty of blame to share around. What matters more are the policy suggestions for increasing voter turnout. More than anything, this book and the history it discusses has reinforced for me the importance of voting, and having the vote accessible to all.

[Jessica]

I wish people wouldn't give their books titles like this. It makes them so unappealing and embarrassing to read, plus it's so much harder to take everything in them seriously, since I go into it expecting a shrill, slanted diatribe. I mean, I guess Piven and Cloward figure anyone who's reading their books already agrees with them, and they're probably right, but still.

I guess the real problem isn't really so much that this title is inflammatory, as it is inelegant. I like a nice title, and this isn't one.

But I must read it nonetheless! I mean, I am interested in learning more about why Americans still don't vote. I'm not as curious about why politicians want it that way. I think I can mostly puzzle that one out on my own.

So far this book is okay. It's the 2000 revision of an older book, and a lot of the research and theories they're citing are pretty old. Still, there's some useful information.

[Public Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of great information here about the low voter turnout trend over the last century in the US. The really heartbreaking thing is that since this book was written in the mid-80s, a lot of the prescriptions this book suggests to solve this problem, motor-voter laws and registration at government offices, have been enacted. Yet we still have low voter turnout (Obama elections excepted). I totally agree that since registered voters vote we need universal registration... but the trick is making that happen.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very few American citizens bother to vote, even in presidential elections. The percentage goes down in state and local elections. Piven examines these statistics and gives reasons why politicians like a low voter turnout.

[Jillian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting subject, but poorly written. It's like reading an especially boring text book or term paper.