The magazine of the North Carolina Center for Voter Education • Saturday May 19, 2012

The Popular Vote

By Damon Circosta
Published: Oct. 4, 2011

RALEIGH - It could be said that the idea of voting has never been more popular than it is today.

From teenagers in the Triangle voting for Scotty McCreery on “American Idol” to stockcar racing fans choosing the next NASCAR Hall of Famer in Charlotte, people throughout North Carolina have more voting opportunities than ever before.

Sometimes it seems like just about everything has a voting component to it. You can vote to choose the new flavor of Mountain Dew and you can vote for “Favorite Survivor” on CBS.  The concept of “letting the people decide” is alive and well.

While millions of people register their choices on everything from snack food to popular singers, fewer and fewer of us are participating in the most important vote of all.

Voting rates in political elections are abysmally low. Throughout the state, races for offices like city council and school board will be decided by a handful of citizens who bother to show up this fall to cast their ballot.

Scholars have been vexed for quite some time on why turnout in elections, particularly local elections like the ones being held this year in North Carolina, is so depleted. Some argue that there is a perception that one vote won’t make a difference. Others argue that with limited days to vote and no online voting, our election system is not nearly as accessible or convenient as, say, calling a toll-free number to vote on “American Idol.” 

Both of these arguments certainly have some merit. But perhaps there are other reasons we don’t show up to vote.

Politics in today’s  24-7 media culture can resemble entertainment more than government. We seem to be more concerned with who is up in the polls, which official got caught in a scandal and which side happens to be winning on any given day. 

But even with this fixation on the drama of our political life, our politics will always be second rate as an entertainment product.  Let’s face it, even our snazziest politicians aren’t thespians and the sometimes-inauthentic drama of politics will never be as exciting as the other stuff on TV.

Policy debates, no matter how much song and dance we inject into them, are unable to compete with more engaging content that was designed specifically to entertain. Due to a political culture obsessed with personality and the more theatrical aspects of our government, actual governing can suffer.

By blurring the line between politics and entertainment we are left with a sub-par entertainment product and an even more atrocious governance structure. No wonder we are voting more often in singing contests and NASCAR  inductions than in elections to decide who will educate our children or protect our drinking water. When we view our politics as nothing more than a second-rate entertainment program, we will treat it as a second-rate priority.

Not all is lost. A surefire way to increase participation in elections and decrease the drama in our government is to take voting seriously.

According to research from the N.C. Center for Voter Education, the No. 1 reason people don’t vote is they feel they don’t know enough about the candidates. By taking the time to do a little research and getting informed about the positions and platforms of our local elected officials, we can get the theatrics out of running for office.

Sure, we can still have fun voting in soft-drink naming contests, but we shouldn’t confuse these novelty votes with the importance of the real thing.