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Precognitive Media for Voting Stats?
11/04/2002
Instapundit posts an email from a reader who is incredulous about mainstream media reports of low voter turnout. My curiosity has been piqued by this coverage, too, not the least because the elections haven't happened yet!
Given the media's liberal... umm... tint, I can't help but wonder what the motivation might be to downplay the likely turnout for one of the most crucial, close, and interesting elections in recent memory (from a pre-election point of view). I've come up with two possibilities:
1. Dampening the public's mood and bringing about a lower voting total will increase the relative weight of any individual votes that the Democrats manage to finagle through the apparently inevitable (and well-planned) lawsuits.
2. Both the ideologies and specific "get out the vote" strategies of each party are such that Democrat voters will be less susceptible to media mood swings. After all, they'll still get their cigarettes (or is it green cards this year?).
At any rate, my general sense is that lower turnouts will help the Democrats. This could be the case, in part, because the citizens voting out of disgust or outrage with our government's (or politicians') doings will be more inclined to vote Republican this time around.
ADDENDUM:
Instapundit added a link to my comments in the post mentioned above (thanks, Glenn!), with the qualification that he's not one for "conspiracy theories." I don't know that it is necessary for there to be a deliberate conspiracy for the above to be true, for many of the same reasons that media watchers leave open the possibility that reporters believe themselves to be offering objective facts without spin when that is demonstrably not the case. The low-turnout reporting could simply reflect a lack of enthusiasm among Democrats for their own candidates and/or party (the Wellstone rally couldn't have helped, here). Because they never considered Republican candidates worth voting for, anyway, they feel there to be nothing about which to be motivated and assume the same to be true for everybody.
However, considering the New York Times's strange reporting about voters' feelings about "Clear Vision," it seems that there might be more of a conscious effort on the media's part. I don't think the Dems have called together their various special interest groups and like-minded organizations to plot, but I do wonder about the degree to which "helping the right side (our side) win" enters into the minds of reporters, writers, and editors.
And why is it every time Mr. Reynolds links to me I'm compelled to check my head for tinfoil? Shhh! Did you hear that? No? Well, that's how you know they're out there.
Posted by Justin Katz @ 02:02 PM EST
13 comments
You don't have to believe in conspiracy theories to understand herd instinct.
The Sanity Inspector @ 11/04/2002 03:12 PM EST
As an aside... What IS the deal with all this "early voting"? Texas, Tennessee, Florida (see Drudge)?
Am I just completely not-clued-in? Absentee ballots by mail, sure, fine... But when did the actual polling places start opening their doors the WEEK BEFORE ELECTION DAY???
Tom @ 11/04/2002 03:14 PM EST
I think your points are well-taken. I am skeptical of reports that link high absentee voting to coming high turnout overall. More and more people want to vote when it's convenient for them, not on the first Tuesday in November. Voting offices are not staffed for high turnout before election--they're probably not well-staffed for medium turn-out. Absentee voting is very susceptible to fraud, so voting offices have to be careful in checking absentee voters. Long lines are probably as indicative of slow processes as they are of high turnout.
Will Vehrs @ 11/04/2002 03:15 PM EST
unfortunately, higher turnout has historically favored the democrats.
John Downing @ 11/04/2002 03:43 PM EST
>unfortunately, higher turnout has historically favored the democrats.
That's awful, we wouldn't want a lot of people to vote would we?
Mark @ 11/04/2002 03:49 PM EST
If you want a pro-democratic motive for media reports of low turnout, I suggest that low turnouts historically favor republicans so reports of low turn off will lull repubicans into a false sense of security. Reports of high voter turn out might send lackadaisical republicans scurring to the polls.
Local media reports here in Texas report early voting turnout at 20%and poll workers extrapolating a 50% overall voter turnout.
Shannon Love @ 11/04/2002 03:49 PM EST
John & Shannon,
I think that's part of what I'm getting at. I think this issue may actually be one for the much-too-thin "everything's changed" file. This is just an impression from a 27-year-old who will vote for the first time in an actual election tomorrow, but previously, the type of people who made a turnout high were new voters or not-extremely-informed voters (youth, immigrants, victim-classers), who tended to go Democrat.
Now, taking myself as one (possibly unique) example, I think the higher numbers will come from had-enoughers, who would be susceptible to the suggestion that they are alone in wanting change, as indicated by publicized apathy. Take, for example, my home state of Rhode Island. The two big races are Congress and governor, and neither Republican candidate was the party's choice in the primaries. It's unlikely, or at least being portrayed that way, that we'll unseat Patrick Kennedy, but given the grassroots flavor of his opponent, Dave Rogers, unusually high turnout could tip the scales.
I guess the issue and perception of it could vary tremendously from state to state.
Justin Katz @ 11/04/2002 04:14 PM EST
I spent 15 years as a television news producer. I can assure you that most of the news media folks have no motive at all in reporting predictions of low voter turnout. Most don't have the intellectual depth necessary to conspire. They're just parroting what they've heard everyone else say. Plus, they're probably getting their information from the AP wire where a 22-year old recent journalism grad who can't get a job at a real newspaper of TV station wrote the story.
Attributing anything the media does or says to a conspiracy (other than the advancement of their individual careers) is just foolishness.
Juan Paxety @ 11/04/2002 05:38 PM EST
Tell Glenn over at Instapundit he can check out the preliminary voting for Texas here:
http://www.keyetv.com/morenews.shtml#11
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think there's something to the slant national media puts on voter turnout. Of course, I also just read the book Bias, so I'm probably a bit hyped up. I'm going out on a limb to say that Republicans really hit a grand slam at the grass roots level, especially in states with a Senate seat up for grabs. Nice site, btw.
Steve @ 11/04/2002 06:09 PM EST
In Texas we've had early voting for a number of years now. It's done for convenience. Early voting in person starts 17 days before each election and ends 4 days before each election. One of the interesting issues however is that higher early voting turnout does not always translate into higher turnout generally. More people are just making use of the opportunity to vote early and avoid waiting in election day lines.
Deb @ 11/04/2002 08:45 PM EST
I agree with Juan Paxety. Everyone loves to ascribe media tendencies to some conspiracy, and it's laziness more than anything. That and a right-wing bias that doesn't really understand the news biz:
David de la Fuente @ 11/04/2002 10:20 PM EST
Juan and David,
As I said, I'm not suggesting a SPECTRE-like conspiracy. In fact, the combination of laziness (objectivity being harder work than reliance on preconception) and journalists fresh from the liberal indoctrination mills we call "college" could create the effect of a liberal "conspiracy" rather handily.
Justin Katz @ 11/04/2002 10:30 PM EST
There is a hotly contested senate race in Texas with no incumbent, and the democrat candidate is the former mayor of Dallas, so a high turnout there is not surprising.
In the "old days" in Texas, a person could not vote "absentee" unless he signed an affidavit stating that he planned to be out of town on election day. The process evolved over the years and we now have "early voting" which is open to everyone. I assume this liberalization of voting methods is common in other states. It has occurred to me that as we have made voting easier, voter turnout has dropped. As with a lot of other things, the easier something becomes, the less we value it.
Labman @ 11/05/2002 12:23 PM EST