How much younger are Latinos? As is immediately apparent in Figure 4.1, Latinos are significantly younger than other Americans, with a median age almost eight years younger than African Americans and almost fifteen years younger than non-Hispanic whites. There is little question that this age distribution now works to Latinos’ disadvantage—the youth of the United States vote much less frequently than older cohorts. Young people are also less connected to their communities, more mobile, less likely to own property, and less likely to have children enrolled in schools. As a consequence, they pay less attention to politics than other Americans, and many issues of governance have lower salience for them. The pace of electoral growth will accelerate significantly, however, as young Latino citizens mature. History suggests that as they begin to raise children and buy homes, to work more and socialize less, they will devote increasing attention to politics and governance.
FIGURE 4.1Median Age by Self-Reported Racial/Ethnic Identity
The categories white, black, and Asian exclude those who identify as Hispanic. Data source: 2010 US Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2010.
Age and nativity, of course, are just two of several key demographic characteristics that suppress Latino vote share. A third characteristic is socioeconomic status, by which we mean income and educational levels. As already mentioned, Latino income and education levels are significantly below the national norms. The influence of income and education should not be underestimated. Figure 4.2 illustrates statistical models of voter turnout from Shaun Bowler and Gary Segura, with and without controls for income and education.9 The darker bars indicate between-group comparisons of racial and ethnic minorities with non-Hispanic whites. African Americans appear to slightly underperform whites when it comes to voting (by 0.7%), while Asian Americans underperform more significantly, at around 14%. Latino citizens are about 13% less likely to vote than non-Hispanic whites.
FIGURE 4.2Minority Turnout Probability Relative to Non-Hispanic Whites, Observed and Estimated, Controlling for Other Factors
Source: Bowler and Segura (2011), 133. Data source: American National Election Study 2008.
The lighter bars reestimate those differences by removing the effects of income and education and comparing individuals of approximately the same income and education, letting only race vary. For African Americans, factoring out income and education differences makes an insignificant difference in their turnout compared to whites: their slight disadvantage turns into a 7% advantage. For Latinos, income and education account for nine points of their 13% disadvantage in relation to whites. In both instances, we can conclude that income and education are principal factors in reducing voter turnout for African Americans and Latino Americans. (The disadvantage in turnout reflected in Asian American numbers is made worse when we account for income and education.) In other words, while Latinos and especially African Americans overperform electorally with respect to their socioeconomic status, Asians dramatically underperform.
Finally, we need to examine mobilization. Do candidates and parties devote relatively less attention to encouraging Latinos to vote, and if so, is this another source of their systematic disadvantage at the polls?
It turns out that Latino citizens are far less likely than similarly situated non-Hispanic whites and others to benefit from mobilization efforts by parties and candidates. Survey data on electoral participation and mobilization make it clear that Latino citizens are less likely to receive turnout messages and other mobilization messages from both parties and candidates. A great deal of the failure of Americans to participate in politics could be laid at the doorstep of the political parties, which have simply failed to try to mobilize voters.10 Campaign contact can increase turnout by several percentage points, especially if the contact is personal in some way.
Almost 47% of non-Hispanic white citizens surveyed in the 2008 American National Election Studies reported having been telephoned or visited by representatives from the parties. The comparable numbers are 38% for African Americans, 32.3% for Latinos, and 21.2% for Asian Americans (see Figure 4.3). This difference is statistically significant and obviously important. There was an almost fifteen-percentage-point gap in the likelihood that a Latino citizen would be contacted and urged to vote in 2008 compared to non-Hispanic whites.
SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MOTIVATION
An absence of resources can depress political participation, and this is a significant challenge for Latinos. Beyond the usual physical or financial resources, however, some political science research suggests that psychological and social factors can be associated with turnout as well—such as a strong belief that participation is the “right” thing to do, or a sense of group loyalty that includes political action. As we suggested earlier, the electoral participation of Latinos and African Americans may be better than their material resources would suggest. Why would this be?
FIGURE 4.3Party Mobilization in the 2008 Election
Respondents were asked this question: “As you know, the political parties try to talk to as many people as they can to get them to vote for their candidate. Did anyone from one of the POLITICAL PARTIES call you up or come around and talk to you about the campaign this year?” Source: Bowler and Segura (2011), 127. Data source: American National Election Study, 2008.
In general, individuals’ psychological engagement in electoral politics reflects their socialization to the political system, the level of information they possess, the extent to which they are inculcated with norms of attention and involvement, and the degree to which their career, neighborhood, and social networks impinge on their political engagement. Residential segregation, like foreign birth, reduces opportunities for exposure to both the participatory habits of others and political information that would reduce the costs of participation and increase the perceived benefits. In short, resource deficits can reduce individuals’ psychological attachment to voting.
There are other social factors to consider as well, chief among them group identity. Michael Dawson’s pioneering work on the critical role of African American solidarity in mobilizing voter participation has since been extended to Latinos and Asian Americans. Identifying with a group—as part of an individual’s identification with a community and how that community acts on its own behalf—can be sufficiently mobilizing to motivate the individual to overcome resource deficits and external mobilization and turn out on behalf of the group.
FIGURE 4.4Self-Reported Motivation of Latinos Who Voted, 2012
Source: Latino Decisions, election eve poll, 2012.
Latino Decisions’ polling has repeatedly found evidence of this effect of group identity. In our election eve polls, we have regularly asked Latino registered voters who report voting why they voted in a particular election: did they vote to support the GOP candidate, to support the Democratic candidate, or to support the Latino community? Latinos have frequently identified community support as their reason for voting. In 2012 there were almost as many respondents who identified the Latino community as what brought them to the polls as respondents who identified a desire to vote for a Democratic candidate. Republican candidates as turnout motivators lagged far behind.
One factor to consider that is more psychological than social is whether the citizen is sufficiently empowered to turn out. That is, does the individual Latino citizen feel that turning out to vote will have any effect? Political scientists call this concept “efficacy,” and we generally break it down into two components: internal efficacy, or a citizen’s feeling that his or her vote has an impact on elections; and external efficacy, or the belief that the outcome of elections can actually change policy. A closely related concept is “alienation”: a citizen’s feeling that her government does not work on behalf of individuals like her but rather serves the rich, or big business, or some group other than her own. Many citizens have low levels of efficacy and higher levels of alienation; an individual’s belief that elections don’t matter—or that he or she doesn’t matter—clearly red
uces political participation.
Though Latinos are overperforming at the polls for their age and socioeconomic status, leaving 11 million or more votes on the table is very detrimental to Latino political empowerment and, by extension, their quality of life. Even as activists and civic engagement organizations try to mobilize more Latinos to participate, register, and vote, a critical question remains: why do Latinos abstain from voting? Are they simply victims of age, lack of education, and low income, or do their attitudes about government and politics partly explain their low turnout?
WHY SOME LATINOS DON’T VOTE
In 2012 Latino Decisions conducted a landmark study of the undermobilized population of Latino citizens eligible to vote. We examined two distinct segments of nonvoting Latinos—those who were successfully registered but failed to turn out, and those who had never registered at all.
We have good reason to believe that these two types of folks differ. Registration is a voluntary act in the United States, and those who choose to take the time to register are different from those who don’t. We think of registered voters as a “self-selected” subsample of the population. They are more interested in politics, they pay more attention to it, they see social or civic value in fulfilling their roles as citizens, and they are generally more socially secure. By contrast, people who never register have usually passed up dozens of opportunities to do so—such as when they obtain a driver’s license, since most motor vehicle registries now make it easy to register to vote at the same time. Importantly, we should never view nonregistration as a failure to act. Since the advent of “motor-voter” and other regular and frequent opportunities afforded individuals to register to vote, it can no longer be said of most nonregistrants that they never encountered that opportunity. Rather, the nonregistrant is now someone who has repeatedly decided to decline the opportunity to register to vote.
So registered voters are different from the unregistered. But some registered voters participate in elections more frequently than others. This, too, is curious, since nonvoting registered voters have already paid a modest cost to be eligible for the process. Why, after choosing to register, would a citizen subsequently choose not to actually vote?
Admittedly, there is lots of “noise” in the process—random circumstances that can shape both the decision to register and the decision to vote. Some nonregistrants may be hoping to avoid jury duty, and some may not even realize they aren’t registered. Among those registering but not voting, work schedules, parenting crises, and even momentary dissatisfaction with the choices in one or more elections might prevent them from voting. But noise notwithstanding, there is clearly a sizable segment of the Latino population (and other Americans as well, of course) who have repeatedly and consciously chosen not to register or, once registered, decided against voting.
Why?
WHAT NONPARTICIPANTS SAY ABOUT ELECTIONS
As mentioned earlier, Latino Decisions conducted six focus groups in Houston, Los Angeles, and Fresno to get some insight into nonparticipation. Across the groups and voter types we found high levels of political alienation and low efficacy. Overall, respondents displayed low levels of internal and external political efficacy, and political trust was low.
When asked why they didn’t vote, participants in all groups expressed strong disillusionment with politicians, parties, lobbyists, and the systematic failure of the political system to address issues that mattered to them. Rafael, from Houston, was not registered. When asked how he felt about politics, he had a quick answer. “Frustration . . . the people down here, nothing changes for them. If anything, it is getting worse.” David, also from Houston, expressed exceedingly low efficacy. Unlike Rafael, David had been turned off by his direct exposure to politics. “The way the system works, I don’t think our vote counts that much. . . . I got really turned off by a lot of things I saw when we were getting involved in the elections.”
There was general agreement that politicians and elected officials are primarily interested in their own political gain and have little regard for the concerns and problems that Americans face. Juanita, not currently registered, expressed the sentiment of powerlessness. “My mom always tried to push me to vote, but my vote is not going to make a difference,” she said. Rafael specifically cited the corrupting influence of money: “There’s too much money in politics.” He went on, “Do you think they [Congress] are going to pass a law saying you can’t do this [lobbying] anymore? Of course not!”
A second important factor surfaced: respondents had low levels of political information, which was not surprising since the resource of education was in short supply among them. Typically, participants in the political system must have the opportunity, motivation, and ability to gather political information. Our respondents clearly had the opportunity (though some did mention being short on time) and ability to gather information, but lacked the motivation to become politically knowledgeable.
Catalina, an unregistered respondent who lived in California, made it clear to us that she knew how and where to register but had chosen not to. “I’ve had the [registration] slip every time I go to the DMV to fill out right there, boom. I just don’t do it. Well, mostly because I don’t pay enough attention, and I don’t want to go in here with my eyes closed, filling in dots for people I don’t know anything about.” Alfredo, in the same focus group of unregistered citizens with Catalina, illustrated how information costs can keep people from being active:
If I’m going to vote, I want to make an informed decision when I vote. I want my vote to really count and be in my best interest. And that’s a lot of work to go there and get to the bottom of these issues, the candidates, the initiatives, and um, I’m kind of lazy right now. I haven’t done that . . . it takes a lot of work, you can’t listen to the commercials.
A sense of powerlessness coupled with a lack of political knowledge leads many Latinos to feel that elected officials either don’t have the power to make a difference or do have the power but are controlled by more powerful external forces. Alfredo voiced his clear belief that government and politics worked to help others, not him. “The government is like, you know, other people that have more power, more money, and control everything. . . . But I mean, elected officials are just puppets.”
Finally, the focus groups revealed some structural barriers that made it difficult to find polling places. Coupled with limited time and a lack of comprehensive, nonpartisan information, Latinos seemed to experience substantial impediments to voting. A strong class component came into play here as well—working people work fixed hours, and long lines can severely diminish their participation. Anita, a perky and talkative registered voter from Houston, explained the connection between costs and participation: if online voting were available, she said, a person could vote “in the privacy of your own home, you could really take the time, there’s not long lines, it’s not late, you’re not tired from working all day. Yeah, take your time.”
FINDING THOSE MISSING VOTERS
The willingness to vote clearly varied across the three voter types. We thought of a number of focus group members as “leaners”—that is, as people who were already inclined to vote (though not reliably so). Respondents in Los Angeles indicated that political messages from trusted sources could motivate them to participate in politics. The sociodemographic profile of the Los Angeles sample suggested that this focus group was more informed about politics than the other groups. The members of this group were more partisan, and a clear connection between personal economic circumstances and elected officials and parties was suggested by their recall of “better times” under the Clinton administration. Candidate and partisan appeals were likely to resonate with this sample.
Registered Latino voters in Fresno were not as eager to participate in the 2012 election, though most of them could be classified as “persuadable.” In both Los Angeles and Fresno, the unregistered we spoke to could best be classified “unreachable.” The majority of unregistered voters noted th
at they planned to “sit out” the election, by which they meant, not that they would ultimately refrain from voting, but that it would take extraordinary efforts to persuade them to vote. Interestingly, some appeared intrigued by the idea of a Latino running for a major political office. A personal or symbolic connection to a candidate or issue could draw these individuals into politics, but any heavy use of political content in a mobilization campaign could turn off this segment.
In Houston, participants in both focus groups expressed a strong willingness to vote, or to consider voting, if they had information about the candidates assuring them that the candidates had well-established records of delivering the outcomes that mattered most to them. Even Rafael, our skeptic, was willing to be persuaded if he could be assured that the quality of the candidates would be better. “If somebody came forward and had a good résumé and background, and showed that they had done some things, then maybe so.”
Moreover, the group solidarity among these Latino voters was clear, as was the emergence of a norm of participation. In fact, some of our registered voters who were not voting expressed considerable remorse, recognizing that in not voting they had violated community and family expectations. To Anita, the outspoken registered voter from Houston, not voting felt wrong: “We were out there working those campaigns. . . . I was eight or nine, and I was out there making T-shirts . . . putting up posters, we were very much involved. And that is why I think it’s real sad that I feel like it’s not worth it anymore. For me not to vote, it’s a real sad thing.” Anita’s sentiments suggest that this sort of voter could be recovered, drawn back into the political system, with the right mobilization and messenger.
Latino America: How America's Most Dynamic Population is Poised to Transform the Politics of the Nation Page 6
