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Study of non-Voting in Local Wilmette Elections

Background:

The Village of Wilmette is a northern suburb of Chicago with a population of 27,000. Median age is 42.2; 17.2% of the population is 65 or older. About 20% of residents have children in grades K-8. 9.3% of the population is non-white; 8.3% identified with the Asian or Pacific Islander group. (Source: 2000 U.S. Census). Median home value is $464,000. Median family income is $98,000. As an older, inner-ring suburb, there has been a significant increase in the amount of tear-downs of older, smaller homes replaced with large 4-5 bedroom houses. This has contributed to an increase in school-age children, placing strain on schools for space and revenue.

From 1995-2002, there have been tax increase referenda for the school (2), park (2) and library (1) taxing units on the ballot, in addition to regular elections. Members of the League of Women Voters have a more than passing interest in local politics. Many have held public office in the past; many more were very involved in local issues, leading them to observe campaigns with more than casual interest. They noted that turnouts for local elections were extremely low which was both surprising and disturbing.

In early 2000, a small group of League members met to discuss why this situation existed. After doing some library research, two things became clear:

1. Wilmette's demographic characteristics would indicate that turnout for elections should be above-average.

2. There is very little research on non-voting at the local level.

At the Wilmette League's annual meeting in May 2000, members endorsed the idea of undertaking a formal League study. The ultimate goal was to increase voter participation in local elections. To do that, the study tried to learn:

  • What are the historic voting patterns for elections in Wilmette?

  • How do they differ over time and type of election?

  • How do they compare with surrounding communities?

  • What are the differences between voters and non-voters in Wilmette?

  • Why are so few people involved in the local decision-making process? In particular, why do so few people vote in local elections?

  • What is the relationship between involvement and voting?

  • Why are more people not involved in the local decision-making process?

    Summary of library research:

    Non-voting is rarely studied in a systematic way. When it is, studies tend to focus on turnout for national elections only. These studies indicate that the upper income, well-educated citizens of Wilmette should have a high percentage of voters.

    A May 1996 study conducted for the LWVUSA by The Mellman Group found that:

  • Non-voters are not more alienated than voters. Voters and non-voters display equal amounts of alienation from and mistrust of politics.

  • Things that do influence voting:

    1. Age-- the single most determinant factor. Those aged 40-49 are 11 percentage points less likely to vote than their parents.

    2. Education--Only 25% of non-voters have college degrees.

    3. Marital status--46% of non-voters are married; 66% of voters are married.

    4. Race--Whites make up 89% of voters and 765 of non-voters

    5. Political philosophy--Conservatives are more likely to vote (52%) than independents (40%) and liberals (47%).

    6. Strong ties to a political party make it more likely that a person will vote (66% of this group are voters compared to 45% of non-partisans).

  • The probability of voting increases along with the perception of having accurate information.

  • Connection to the community and the value friends and family place on voting are crucial determinants of electoral participation. Club membership is one indicator of the strength of an individual's network.

  • Voters are more likely to think of voting as a responsibility than as a way to communicate their decisions.

  • Elections for executive positions (president, governor, etc.) tend to be seen as more significant than those for legislative positions.

  • Other things being equal, someone who has been contacted about voting is 22% more likely to vote than an individual who reports no contact.

  • Parties, candidates and organizations are much less interested in those with no history of voting, so they receive less contact.

    Non-Voters: America's No Shows is a book written by two professors of journalism at Northwestern University, Ellen Shearer and Jack Doppelt. The two professors and their graduate students surveyed a representative sample of Americans through a 1996 pre-election questionnaire and a collection of in-depth interviews following the 1996 presidential election. This methodology revealed that behind the superficial reasons given for not voting (not enough time, inconvenient, uninformed, etc.) there were other issues which revealed themselves only in the in-depth follow-up interviews.

    The authors say of non-voters:

    "[B]ehind the answer that they are too busy to vote or that the process is too cumbersome lies the accumulated belief of a majority of Americans that a vote not only lost its actual value in terms of influencing the result of an election...but also its symbolic value as a democratic virtue....The vast majority of non-voters are not turned off by a particular candidate or a certain election. They opted out long ago and are beyond the reach of conventional measures to bring them back."

    In "Campaign 1998: Taking Stock of American Citizenship," an article by Everett Carll Ladd (taken from IntellectualCapital.com, 8/20/98), the author notes that electoral participation is heavily influenced by the frequency of elections. The more frequent the voting, the less any one contest spurs engagement.

    Curtis Wood, a graduate student at the University of Kansas, used regression analysis to examine turnout in municipal elections and found that there were two elements that influenced turnout in these elections: whether the election was concurrent with national or gubernatorial elections and the type of government organization. Wilmette fits the criteria of an "adapted administrative" organization, which is associated with lower turnout than a more politicized form of organization.

    Data Accumulation:

    Data was compiled on the total of registered voters and the total of ballots cast for all elections in New Trier Township for the period from March 1982 through November 2000. (Source: Cook County Elections Office) This data was converted to spreadsheets and charts, with the results for three suburbs compared: Wilmette, Glencoe and Winnetka. Since the communities vary in size, we developed percentage turnout statistics by comparing the total of ballots case to the total of registered voters.

    Analysis of Data:

    1. The variance of turnout in Wilmette between presidential and local elections is 30-40 percentage points.

    2. The three communities show very similar percentages of turnout for elections for president, hovering near 80%.

    3. In elections for governor, the turnouts range from 57-71%; once again, the percentages for each community follow a similar pattern for each election.

    4. Elections that included presidential primaries also follow a very similar trend for each community. The 3/96 election (primary before Clinton reelection) hovered near 30%; other primaries ranged from 40-59%.

    5. There is tremendous variance in turnout for all other elections. None of these elections had turnout greater than 50%, even when a local tax referendum was on the ballot.

    6. Before doing any further analysis of what was on each ballot, we were able to conclude that the turnout for local elections was no worse in Wilmette than in the other communities. This answered one of our questions posed at the beginning of the study.

    7. There is no governmental body that keeps a sample ballot after elections. This means that there is no easy way to check archives to determine what candidates/issues were on the ballot. Instead, we used microfiche of back issues of the local paper to compile a list of issues/offices on the ballot. We did this only for Wilmette as it was very time-consuming.

    Additional Activities:

  • We obtained a copy of a study done by the Alexandria, Virginia LWV on turnout for local elections. Because of the diversity of the Alexandria community, their electorate contained many more of the demographic populations less likely to vote in any election. Nothing in this study helped us to answer the question about why Wilmette residents had a 30-40% variance in turnout between national and local elections.

  • Members of the study committee listened to a discussion with the authors of the book, Non-Voters: America's No Shows, on National Public Radio and also attended a panel discussion on non-voting sponsored by the Chicago Humanities Festival which included Ms. Shearer and other diverse observers of voting behavior as Rahm Emanuel, a former Wilmette resident who worked on political issues for the Clinton Administration.

  • In addition, Ms. Shearer met with committee members in January 2001 to discuss aspects of her research which continued through the November 2000 presidential election.

  • The Wilmette LWV also sponsored a presentation, "Reflections on the Election," in February 2001 with Susan Herbst, Chair of the Political Science Department of Northwestern University. Committee members again had the opportunity to discuss the study and ask questions about the topic of non-voting in local elections.

    Post-Study Activities:

  • In order to probe the variance in turnout between national and local elections, the committee sought out expertise from the National Opinion Research Center associated with the University of Chicago. Virginia Bartot and Martha Van Haitsma developed a proposed research study using focus groups to amplify the data at an estimated cost of $15,000. Although the committee approached numerous sources for funding, we were unsuccessful in obtaining funds for this next step.

  • Turning to the expertise of League members with long histories of involvement in local politics, we held an informal meeting on 9/22/00 to share the results of the study and hear their observations. Attendees noted that there had been local elections in the past with turnout that exceeded 50%. Unfortunately, these elections were characterized by turmoil, conflict and general muckraking, including rumors and threats. In fact, in the spring 1969 election, there were many people lined up at poll-closing time of 6PM who were not permitted to vote. At the time, there were few polling places for local elections as the locations were determined at the discretion of the taxing body. After legal maneuvering, the election had to be repeated in the fall of 1969.

    In the eyes of this group representing a long-standing history of activity on the local scene, Wilmette politics have greatly improved since that time. There no longer is a feeling that a small band of residents controls any of the taxing bodies; elections provide multiple candidates for each position, affording voters a choice. Meetings of taxing bodies are more open and allow opportunity for more public comments.

    Since this meeting occurred only 11 days after the September 11 tragedies, there was some discussion on whether a surge of patriotism would contribute to greater turnout/involvement in the future; opinions were mixed on this topic.

  • The study committee met and evaluated our position subsequent to this. We concluded that the events of the presidential election in November 2000 (heightened awareness of the inherent problems with voting systems and the importance of each vote) combined with the surge of patriotism following the attack on the World Trade Centers were both events that could result in changes in voting patterns. In addition, the state of Illinois had consolidated local elections beginning in 2000 so that November elections in odd years would take place in April instead. It was our conclusion that we would wait for the results of the next few elections to add more raw data and reexamine voting patterns.

  • Voting data by precinct is now readily available on the Cook County Clerk's website (www.voterinfonet.com) and can easily be added to our study tables. The March 2002 election data has been added. The new data does raise some interesting questions. This election involved very tight primary races for numerous state offices, including governor. It also followed redistricting resulting from the 2000 census. (Wilmette had previously been in House Rep. Jeff Schoenberg's District. It is now split into two different state house districts.) The Wilmette Park District also had a referendum on the ballot to determine whether the district should issue bonds to purchase the Mallinckrodt property. Turnout in Wilmette for the March 2002 election was 53%. This represents the first "local" election in our study years (March 1982- current) where turnout exceeded 50%. In comparison, turnout in Winnetka was 36% and in Glencoe was 37%.

  • During this same election, Kenilworth had a school tax increase on its ballots. This school referendum followed a defeat in a previous election which had resulted in severe cuts in programs at Sears School. Turnout in Kenilworth was 67%. Both the Wilmette and Kenilworth referenda passed by substantial margins, despite the fact that the U.S. economy has been in recession. The turnout in Kenilworth's election was extraordinary for a local election. Except for November 1983 (55% turnout), Kenilworth's percentage of turnout has been quite low and has not exceeded 50%.

  • It is the recommendation of the study committee that the League continue to keep updated statistics and determine any future activities based on a review of new data. Given the intention of the League to develop and distribute a voter's guide in our next fiscal year, and the ability to utilize our website to provide more information for the community on local issues and candidates, it will be useful to keep updated records to inform future actions.

    Committee members:

    Elizabeth Bankoff, Ph.D.

    Holly Berman, MBA

    Laura Botte, B.S.

    Elizabeth Jacobs, J.D.

    Mary Marnell, Ph.D.

    Nancy Schmidt, B.A.