Tuesday, August 18, 1998

Too many are just too busy for democracy

Give 3.5 million Americans credit for honesty. They told the Census Bureau the reason they didn't vote in the last election was that they didn't care about the outcome. Fair enough. Americans have the right not to vote.

However, another 4.6 million said they were "too busy" to vote. That's nonsense. Presidential elections don't come as a surprise, and absentee ballots are almost too easy to obtain. With only 54 percent of the eligible population voting, it's not as if the polling places were too crowded.

Some no-shows said their employers wouldn't give them time off to vote. If so, then these employers should be singled out for shame and derision, but that may be just an excuse since the percentage of non-voters saying they were "too busy" has tripled since 1980. There's no evidence a wave of anti-voting bias has swept the nation's employers since then.

With the exception of a small uptick in 1992, the percentage of eligible voter turnout has fallen in every presidential election since 1964 when turnout was 69 percent. People aren't any busier now than they were 34 years ago.

One explanation for the falling turnout is that people feel their votes don't count. Young voters, the most likely to be too busy to vote, may want to ponder why the tax laws favor those over 55, who have the highest turnout.

People may feel they were too busy to vote, but it's a cinch they will never be too busy to complain about the outcome.