Where Have All the Voters Gone? [Paperback]

Martin P. Wattenberg (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 067400938X | ISBN-13: 978-0674009387 | Publication Date: November 15, 2002

As the confusion over the ballots in Florida in 2000 demonstrated, American elections are complex and anything but user-friendly. This phenomenon is by no means new, but with the weakening of political parties in recent decades and the rise of candidate-centered politics, the high level of complexity has become ever more difficult for many citizens to navigate. Thus the combination of complex elections and the steady decline of the party system has led to a decline in voter turnout.

In this timely book, Martin Wattenberg confronts the question of what low participation rates mean for democracy. At the individual level, turnout decline has been highest among the types of people who most need to have electoral decisions simplified for them through a strong party system--those with the least education, political knowledge, and life experience.

As Wattenberg shows, rather than lamenting how many Americans fail to exercise their democratic rights, we should be impressed with how many arrive at the polls in spite of a political system that asks more of a typical person than is reasonable. Meanwhile, we must find ways to make the American electoral process more user-friendly.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The number of Americans who bother to vote has declined for decades, to the point that the United States has the lowest turnout rate in the industrialized world, save only Switzerland. Why this is so is a question that Wattenberg (Univ. of California, Irvine; The Decline of American Political Parties) studies from every available angle-sociological, psychological, economic, and political. Much of what he finds is well known: the poor are less likely to vote than the well off, the decline of parties and rise of candidate-centered politics has adversely affected turnout, and the young vote at an abysmally low rate. His work is original, however, on such questions as the effect of negative political advertising and on the difficulties in the act of voting itself. Far more accessible than Warren E. Miller's authoritative The New American Voter and with a wider scope than Frances Fox Piven's Why Americans Still Don't Vote and Why Politicians Want It That Way, Wattenberg's book is a lucid presentation of new and prior research on an important problem. Recommended for all academic and many public libraries.
Robert F. Nardini, Chichester, NH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

This is a very well written and well argued analysis of the problem of low and declining voter turnout in the United States...Wattenberg knows the American and comparative literatures very well, and he summarizes and integrates them expertly. In addition, he adds new and important evidence.
--Arend Lipjhart, University of California, San Diego (20020915)

This is a well-organized and well-written book on an important topic. It offers a critical review of what political scientists think they know about determinants of voting turnout and some original research. A big plus is that it puts the fall in US turnout into a broader international perspective.
--Richard Freeman, Harvard University (20021108)

The number of Americans who bother to vote has declined for decades, to the point that the United States has the lowest turnout rate in the industrialized world, save only Switzerland. Why this is so is a question that Wattenberg studies from every available angle...Wattenberg's book is a lucid presentation of new and prior research on an important problem.
--Robert F. Nardini (Library Journal )

Even as registering to vote has been made easier, Martin P. Wattenberg explains, the decline has continued. Where Have All the Voters Gone? is a thorough review of the recent academic studies of the question...Wattenberg assesses the studies and adds a few conclusions on how to get more voters to the polls.
--Anthony Day (Los Angeles Times )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (November 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067400938X
• ISBN-13: 978-0674009387
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #922,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Basically more of the same, August 12, 2007

By 

Carl Yaffe "non-voter by choice" (Rockville, Maryland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Where Have All the Voters Gone? (Paperback)

Although well-written, well-documented, and (as others have pointed out) much more easily read by the layman than many works on the same topic, Wattenberg's book has the same fatal flaw as most: He starts with the questionable assumptions that America's level of voter turnout represents a problem, a crisis, an alarming development, etc., and that greater participation is essential for a democratic government to function well. And then he does nothing to try to prove the truth of either. He disputes the widely-held view that the under-representation of some groups of voters (the young, the poor, etc.) has little influence on election results or consequent policy decisions, but fails to document his own view in "real world" terms. His preferred "cure" for the "problem" is to re-fortify the two major political parties, the repository of much of the corruption which has poisoned our political system.

The book is worth reading for those interested in the subject, but don't look for much enlightenment, or an unbiased consideration of the significance of a plurality's (and sometimes majority's) consistent preference for "None of the Above" in American elections.