The Myth of Voter Turnout

How often have you heard the talking heads on TV decry the fate of falling voter turnout in our democracies? When was the last time your heard anyone, from any part of the political spectrum, say that maybe this isn't so bad? If you said "Never", read on...you're about to!

Most people in the political world take it on faith that more voter participation is a good thing. Like most articles of faith, however, it really isn't based upon any real evidence.

I divide voters (regardless of how they vote) into 5 main classes:

• Ideologues/True Believers: These are the people for whom the leaders of their party can do no wrong, and would vote no matter what for them, even if they happened to run a yellow dog for a particular office. I also include in this list people who vote on the basis of a single issue and say "Well, I agree with X on 99.9% of issues, but we don't agree on this last issue, so I can't vote for him!"
  
• Information Addicts: These people are addicted to information and news. The research about all the parties and candidates running for an office and choose between them.
• Sheeple: These are the people who look for momentum in an election. Nothing bothers them more than voting for a loser, so they're mostly concerned about who will win, and getting onto that bandwagon
• Traditionalists: "My daddy voted for party X, and his daddy before him voted for party X, so that's why I vote for party X"
• The Apathetic Majority

Two of these groups have high turnout already, and increasing it is difficult (a small pool to work with)

1. True Believers: These people vote with near 100% reliability. Increasing/Decreasing turnout among this group takes an Act of God (think major storm preventing them from getting to the polls)
2. Information Addicts: These people generally are pretty high turnout too. They've invested so much time in researching the candidates that it would be a shame to waste all that time by not voting.

So, increasing turnout has to focus on the other three. The question then becomes "Why?"

Does someone who simply votes because Candidate X is ahead in the polls actually help democracy? They have no idea what the issues are or what they're voting for/against.

Traditionalists are similarly uninformed, and honestly, I could care less if they drag their backsides out of their homes/offices to vote.

The Apathetic Majority, again. If they don't take the time to learn about the issues and candidates, does their vote actually matter? Or is it mere random chance that serves no real purpose other than to make us feel better about ourselves because more people voted?

So, in summary, the informed voters are already voting. Why we should be encouraging the uninformed and apathetic to vote and dilute the votes of those who actually care is beyond me.