Voter registration and educational programs for the poor and moderate income groups were a dominant political strategy embraced by a number of social welfare organizations during the 1984 general election. This article reviews one such project that registered 4,124 individuals and implemented a follow-up survey of 500 new registrants. Based on the survey, the author identifies a number of voting and nonvoting behaviors that should be considered in future voter registration and education projects. The author also identifies critical policy issues that impede voter participation among the poor

Colby, Ira

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The Journal of Sociology & Social WelfareVolume 14Issue 3 September Article 3September 1987Registering the Poor to Vote: Lessons from the1984 General ElectionIra ColbyUniversity of Texas, ArlingtonFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jsswPart of the American Politics Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, and the SocialWork CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Social Work atScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contactmaira.bundza@wmich.edu.Recommended CitationColby, Ira (1987) "Registering the Poor to Vote: Lessons from the 1984 General Election," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare:Vol. 14 : Iss. 3 , Article 3.Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol14/iss3/3REGISTERING THE POOR TO VOTE:LESSONS FROM THE 1984 GENERALELECTIONIRA COLBYSocial Work ProgramUniversity of Texas at ArlingtonTexasVoter registration and educational programs for the poor and moderateincome groups were a dominant political strategy embraced by a numberof social welfare organizations during the 1984 general election. Thisarticle reviews one such project that registered 4,124 individuals andimplemented a follow-up survey of 500 new registrants. Based on thesurvey, the author identifies a number of voting and nonvoting behaviorsthat should be considered in future voter registration and educationprojects. The author also identifies critical policy issues that impede voterparticipation among the poor.INTRODUCTIONVoter registration and education is a political strategywhose goal is to broaden the electoral support for particularissues and candidates. Piven and Cloward challenged the so-cial welfare community to adopt voter registration in the 1984Presidential primaries and general election as a mechanism toempower the poor in the political process (Piven and Cloward,1983, 3-14). A number of human service organizations includ-ing the National Association of Social Workers, the Council onSocial Work Education, the American Public Health Associa-tion, and the American Public Welfare Association, respondedto Piven's and Cloward's call by making voter registration ahigh priority during the election year (Livingston, 1-3; Pivenand Cloward, 1985, 583).This paper, based on the results of a low-income voterregistration project conducted by undergraduate social workstudents from the University of Texas-Arlington, examines vot-ing beliefs among new registrants, identifies their voting andnonvoting trends, and concludes with recommendations tostrengthen the political impact of the poor and near poor.1METHODOLOGYBSW students in two community organization classes de-veloped a series of voter registration projects that registered4,124 individuals. Utilizing 1980 census track data, low-to-mod-erate income neighborhoods were identified and targeted forregistration. Project registrants were asked to complete a fol-low-up information sheet of which 3,696 (89.62 percent) werereturned. 2 Of this number, 756 (20.46 percent) were deletedfrom further study due to a lack of phone numbers or illegiblehandwriting, leaving 2,940 individuals for follow-up purposes.The students conceptualized voter education as a signifi-cant political activity to increase voting rates. An "Adopt-A-Registrant" program was proposed to and implemented by theTarrant County League of Women Voters, Fort Worth, Texas,which met the educational goals of the project. Each Leaguevolunteer was provided names of five or six registrants to con-tact. Couples, who registered at the same time, were tele-phoned by two different League members to ensure that eachperson was contacted by the project rather than through aspouse, friend, or significant other. The purposes of theLeague's calls were to (a) encourage individuals to vote, (b)provide names, phone numbers, and/or addresses of local regi-strar offices for particular problems (i.e., lost voting card), (c)provide addresses of the polling place, and, finally, (d) shareLeague information, if requested, concerning candidates andreferenda items. Prior to the phone calls, the new registrantswere randomly placed into one of three groups: Control GroupA and Experimental Groups B and C. Members of Group Awere not telephoned by League members; Group B was con-tacted once while Group C was telephoned on two separateoccasions. Initial contact with Groups B and C was made two tothree weeks prior to the election with the second call to GroupC placed the evening immediately preceding the Presidentialelection.A random sample without replacement of 500 registrantswas selected and a telephone call survey administered during athree day period following the November election. 3 The sur-vey, modeled on the instrument utilized by the Texas Secretaryof State's office, was pretested in the 1984 Texas May Primarywith a sample of 156 voters (Peterson). The final data werecoded and analyzed through a Statistical Analysis computerformat.FINDINGSVoter ParticipationOf those registered, 72.65 percent were female and 27.35percent were male. The predominance of women was antici-pated given that the the majority of the poor and near-poor arefemale. The percentage of those who voted was below thecounty's (73.92 percent) and national (87.75 percent) figures:73.50 percent of the new registrants voted in the Novemberelection (U.S. Bureau of the Census). Women voted more fre-quently then men - 76.08 percent compared to 66.67 percent.Of those voting, 34.50 percent labeled themselves as "liber-al" while 30.23 percent felt they were "conservative" (SeeTable 1). Among nonvoters, the percentage of those classifyingthemselves as liberal or conservative was lower, while the"moderate" rating received the highest ranking (54.84percent).Women viewed themselves as being more liberal than didmen - 34.51 percent compared to 22.91 percent. Conversely,males tended to be more conservative than women - 37.50 per-cent to 24.70 percent (See Table 1).Registrant EducationThe project hypothesized that contact with new registrantswould increase voter turnout and as the number of contactsincreased there would be a rise in voter participation. The inde-pendent variable, the number of phone contacts, increasedTABLE 1POLITICAL IDENTIFICATION BY SEX AND VOTING STATUSMALE Liberal Moderate ConservativeVote 15.62 22.92 28.12No Vote 7.29 16.67 9.38TOTAL 22.91 39.59 37.50FEMALE Liberal Moderate ConservativeVote 29.02 27.06 20.00No Vote 5.49 13.73 4.70TOTAL 34.51 40.79 24.70with each experimental group to determine what changes, ifany, occurred with the dependent variable, voter participationrates.Group A, which received no phone contacts, voted 57.02percent while the voting rates of those groups contacted wereboth approximately 1.4 times as large as the noncontact group:Group B, which was phoned once, reported that 83.61 percentvoted while group C's voting rate, with two phone contacts,was 81.66 percent (See Table 2).TABLE 2NUMBER OF TELEPHONECONTACTS AND VOTING RATESVoted ForPresidentContacts Yes No0 57.02 42.981 83.61 16.392 81.66 18.34Mobility Among New RegistrantsAn unexpectedly large percentage of new registrants, 24.20percent, had changed their residences or were unable to becontacted at the time of the survey: 7.8 percent had moved,14.0 percent of the phones were disconnected, and 2.4 percentwere wrong numbers. The May 1984 pretest was unable toreach 14.70 percent of the registrants for similar reasons. Be-tween May and November, those unable to be contacted in-creased by 9.50 percent.A total of 70 phones were disconnected and a random tele-phone contact of 30 names through the telephone company'sinformation service was made to determine if the missing regis-trants remained in the geographic area. However, none of theindividuals were located using the telephone area code as thecontact boundary.Why Not Vote?Those voting were asked to identify strategies they feltwould increase the voting percentage while nonvoters wereasked why they didn't vote. Responses were categorized intotwo groups - internal (items the individual has control over)and external (items beyond the control of the individual).A contrast emerged between the two groups: the nonvoteridentified internal variables for not participating in the electionwhile voters perceived external issues as the primary barrier toincreased voter participation. Nonvoters identified internalvariables 60.87 percent compared to 39.12 percent for externalreasons (See Table 3). The internal statement I DIDN'T WANTTO VOTE was the most frequently identified item among non-voters, 22.83 percent, while the external statement I WAS UN-ABLE TO FIND THE POLLS was the least frequent response,2.18 percent.Those not contacted also identified I DIDN'T WANT TOVOTE as the primary reason for not voting, though the internalstatement I COULDN'T DECIDE ON THE ISSUES was thesecond most frequently rated answer, 19.23 percent.Nonvoting women in general identified internal reasonsbut they rated the external variable I WAS WORKING muchTABLE 3WHY PEOPLE DON'T VOTE BY SEXReason Male FemaleInternalDidn't want to 14.13 8.70Was too busy 4.35 9.78Forgot 3.26 6.52Issues not important 0.00 14.13ExternalWas working 5.43 13.04Medical reasons 2.17 7.61Out of town 3.26 2.17Couldn't find the polls 1.09 1.09Couldn't get a ride 1.09 2.17higher than nonvoting males - 13.04 percent to 5.43 percent.Nonvoting males, on the other hand, claimed their decisionwas by personal choice. Approximately 14 percent of the non-voting males "Didn't want to vote," which is more than threetimes the rate of any other variable for this cohort.Voters rated the external statement PROVIDE TRANS-PORTATION TO THE POLLS highest at 27.91 percent. Trans-portation, however, was the least important issue to the non-voter - only 2.18 percent reported this as a problem area (SeeTable 4).IMPLICATIONS FOR REGISTRATION/EDUCATIONPROJECTSThe social welfare community embraced voter registra-tion/education as a vehicle to involve society's historically po-litically disenfranchised members in reshaping the nation'ssocial agenda. It is impossible to determine the exact number ofpersons who were registered and voted as a result of thesenational efforts. 4 Further, it is equally as difficult to substanti-ate the impact made by these new voters in the 1984 generalTABLE 4WHAT WILL GENERATE HIGHER VOTER RATES BY SEX ANDTHOSE WHO VOTEDReason Male FemaleInternalNeed better issues 1.94 7.75Find better candidates 1.16 5.81Have fewer elections 3.10 4.26Have the candidate meet the voter more often .78 4.26ExternalMore Advertising 2.71 13.71Better publicity of the polling locations 1.16 5.81Provide Transportation 5.43 22.48Make voting mandatory 1.16 1.16No idea 1.94 7.75Other ideas 1.94 2.71election. If the sole criterion for success was the repudiation ofthe Reagan administration then the registration projects were afailure; however, if these projects were to broaden the politicalsphere among the poor and near-poor, then the projects were apartial success.What are the lessons of the 1984 registration/educationprojects? There are a number of key points this study supportsfor future efforts: (1) the poor tend to be more liberal than thegeneral population with women less conservative than men; (2)contact increases voter turnout; (3) transportation to the polls isnot a significant dilemma for the nonvoter; and (4) some indi-viduals will, as a personal conviction, chose not to vote.The study also raises important questions which requirefurther research and collective action. First, mobility by thepoor and near-poor indicates that registration strategies mustcontend with voter movement as a barrier that keeps peoplefrom voting. In the 1984 Presidential election only five states,Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, and Wisconsin, al-lowed election day registration. Conversely, citizens in 35states and territories were faced with a registration deadline ofat least 28 days prior to the election.5 Such laws clearly limitelectoral participation by the poor, a highly mobile populationgroup, and penalize their political status due to their economiccircumstances.This high mobility also mandates that low-to-moderate in-come neighborhoods must be recanvassed to register new resi-dents - an area once covered will need to be reworked within ashort period of time.An equally important issue revolves around working wom-en's access to the polls. This research found that indiscriminateuse of employer compensation policy created an obstacle to thepolls. In effect, low-income women were placed in a double-bind situation: on the one hand, the women's liberal identifica-tion implies support for realigning the nation's conservativesocial goals, but if they did vote, they feared not being paid atwork. The choice of not voting is understandable and clear inthe face of a low income and the threat of lost wages. Effectivepublic policy must be developed to protect the workers' in-comes when exercising their political rights.This study verified that voter contact increases the like-lihood that an individual will vote. However, this researchdoes not show a significant difference between voting rates andthe number of contacts, a finding contrary to traditional politi-cal thinking. This lack of difference is attributable to a numberof external variables (such as the preponderance of politicaladvertising, issue/candidate mailings, telephoning conductedby various interest groups) not controlled for in this study. Thisis a critical area for political groups: if it is determined, forinstance, that one contact is sufficient then needless redundan-cy may be eliminated and volunteer energies can be utilizedmore effectively.Finally, evaluative research is required to determine theeffectiveness of a number of voter education strategies. Thisproject utilized a telephone strategy, but alternative modelsexist: do literature mailings accelerate voter rates; would per-sonal contact by candidates or their supporters increase voterparticipation; what is the impact of combining literature mail-ings, telephoning, and personal visits in an election?The lessons of 1984 provide an excellent opportunity toplan for future elections. The social welfare community mustrethink its strategies for voter registration and education pro-jects - the goals set forth by Piven and Cloward may beachieved if there are significant modifications in strategies andrelated public policies.NOTES1. The American Political Science Foundation provides a brief analysis ofvoting patterns for each of the national elections from 1972 thru 1980.For example, see C. Anthony Broh and Charles L. Prysby, Voting Behav-ior: The 1980 Election, (1981); also, Democratic National Committee, VoterRegistration Manual, Washington, DC: Democratic National Committee.2. It is a violation of Texas law to take any information directly from a voterapplication, thus the need for a separate sign-up sheet.3. A limitation to the telephone survey is that information is often impossibleto verify and cannot be taken at face value. As a result, analysis, in-terpretation, and generalizability of data should integrate these designlimitations. See, D.W. Fiske, "When Are Verbal Reports Veridical?" inR.A. Shweder (ed.), "Fallible Judgement in Behavioral Research," NewDirections for Methodology of Social and Behavioral Science, San Francisco:Jossey-Bass, 1980; Claire Selltiz, Lawrence S. Wrightsman, and StuartW. Cook, Research Methods in Social Relations, New York: Holt, Rinehart,and Winston, 3rd edition, 1976, pp. 292-293.4. Human SERVE, a national organization based on the principles of Pivenand Cloward, reportedly registered 275,000 people by October, 1984.5. States and territories requiring 28 or more days as a registration deadlineinclude Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, District of Co-lumbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mas-sachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey,New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma,Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vir-ginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming, Guam, Puerto Rico, andthe Virgin Islands.REFERENCESLivingston, Debra R. 1983. Power at the Polls. Washington, D.C.: NationalAssociation of Social Workers.Peterson, Robert A. 1982. May Primary, Election Analysis, Executive Summary.Austin, TX: Secretary of State.30Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward, Richard A. 1983. "Towards a Class-BasedRealignment of American Politics: A Movement Strategy." Social Policy.13: 3-14.-- . 1985. "Prospects for Voter Registration Reform: A Report on theExperiences of the Human SERVE Campaign." PS 18.U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports. 1985. Series P-20,No. 397. Voting and Participation in the Election of November 1984. U.S.Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C., January.

Registering the Poor to Vote: Lessons from the 1984 General Election

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