ShareThisBy LYNDA GLEDHILL
Sunday, November 19, 2006
California will continue to see relatively low voter turnout for the foreseeable future in nonpresidential elections as minorities, independents and young voters increase the ranks of the state's "occasional" voters, two of the state's top pollsters say.
That trend was evident in last week's election, where only about half of the state's registered voters turned out to the polls. Those voters, while motivated, did not always vote along party lines. GOP incumbent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger defeated Democrat Treasurer Phil Angelides by 17 percentage points.
"You saw a lack of party loyalty toward Phil Angelides, Schwarzenegger having no coattails and partisan appeal had little influence on propositions," said Mark Baldassare, pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California. He noted that one in three people who voted for Schwarzenegger also said they disapprove of President Bush and voted for Democrat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown for state attorney general.
"With the addition of half a million independent voters since the (2003) recall, there will be more volatility in terms of turnout and more possibilities of a split ticket," Baldassare said.
Pollster Mark DiCamillo of the Field Institute said that nonpartisan registration is a way for people to avoid the partisan squabbling.
"It's refreshing to get away from partisan politics, they recoil at that level of bickering," he said. "Yet my view of nonpartisans is that they are one step away from just not being registered to vote at all."
DiCamillo noted that in the June primary, 89 percent of voters were affiliated with a political party. He said he expects one in three voters to go to the polls during primaries and one in two in nonpresidential general elections.
Younger people and recent immigrants tend to be less involved in their communities and therefore are not as inclined to vote, DiCamillo said.
"If you are rooted in a community for a long period of time you're going to be more likely to be a voter," he said. "You have a greater stake in the outcome. If you're transient, new to the process, those voters may be registered, but they are much less rooted and less likely to vote in the election."
The secretary of state's office said 48 percent of eligible Californians voted in last week's election, although absentee and provisional ballots are still being counted so that number is expected to rise slightly. Still, it will probably be the lowest turnout for a nonpresidential gubernatorial election in the state's history.
Of the 69 percent of Californians who are registered to vote, 18.6 percent are decline-to-state, according to 2006 numbers compiled by the secretary of state. The two major parties and all other parties have lost members since 2002, while decline-to-state voters increased by 3.6 percent.
Both major political parties are struggling to reach out to voters beyond their base, the pollsters Tony Quinn, co-editor of the nonpartisan California Target Book, said there is an increasing number of not only nonpartisans, but "soft" Republicans and Democrats who don't automatically go to the polls so they can vote for their party.
"There is a much bigger center," he said. "And nobody campaigns to it. Angelides made no attempt to get to the middle."
Republican Party officials admitted that they didn't get as many GOP voters to the polls last week as they had hoped.
"People get complacent, they think government is working, and they decided to stay home," said Hector Barajas, a spokesman for the state Republican Party.
Democratic Party spokesman Roger Salazar said his party wants to try to convince people that they should be registered as Democrats.
"We still believe most Californians are blue, and what we have to do is in addition to talking to the base, we have to let other folks know we stand for the same values they do," he said.
