Millions of people in the U.S. don’t vote. Could anything change their minds?
Earl Jones was in a park near a Detroit municipal building where he sleeps most nights when Karrington Kelsey struck up a conversation about voting.
Kelsey, the Michigan state director for an organization that works to get more Americans to vote, was in Spirit Plaza hoping to get workers on their lunch breaks and other passersby engaged in the 2024 election. Jones, a lifelong Detroit resident who said he lives on social security and “hustling,” last voted in the 1970s.
The two men talked for 10 minutes, as Kelsey, 32, tried to convince the 73-year-old that even though he was lukewarm about national politics, voting was the way to make a difference on the local level. Jones was not swayed.
Regardless of what party is in control, Jones said, the lives of people who struggle to make ends meet don’t improve. His own benefits have been cut and his attempt to move off the street into housing seems stymied, he said, while lawmakers repeatedly tout a revitalization of Detroit’s downtown.
“I ain’t voting for nobody unless we see somebody go do something for us, and not just for me, for everybody — you, him and him,” Jones said, pointing to people around him. “If they do something for us it’ll be alright. If they don’t, the hell with it.”
That scores of eligible voters sit out elections is a concern not just for which candidates win or lose, but for U.S. democracy itself. Voting is the main way for Americans to participate directly in their government, choosing who will represent them from the local to the national level. Those representatives decide what laws are passed, what level of funding is provided to communities and countless other questions that affect people’s daily lives.
Kamala Harris’ swift ascent to the lead the Democratic ticket has energized a party that was divided over President Joe Biden’s candidacy. Still, a decision by even a sliver of voters to sit out the race could have big implications in some of the most competitive states like Michigan.
According to a study by the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the University of Southern California, more than 75 million people eligible to vote — including nearly 35 million Black, Hispanic and Asian American people — did not cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election. That’s even though the 66% of voting-eligible people who did turn out was the highest rate in any national election in decades. The report, which used voter registration and U.S. Census race data based in part on estimates, defined a person as eligible if they were a citizen and old enough to register.
The U.S. turnout rate is consistently lower than other established democracies, said Mindy Romero, director of the center at USC. The electorate that votes is not representative of the full population, she added, “and that’s not good for those communities that are underrepresented.”
“What we know historically is that our elected officials in our country are not hearing from all voters on the full range of issues and needs and concerns of Americans. They’re only hearing from a subset,” Romero said. “Good policy requires that elected officials see the full slate of information and needs as they decide how to distribute resources.”
In 2020, nonvoters were more likely than voters to be young, not college educated, never married, have a low household income and be a person of color, according to AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of the electorate. Nearly 4 in 10 nonvoters during the 2020 election were under 30, whereas only about 1 in 10 voters were, VoteCast found.
About 2 in 10 nonvoters said they didn’t believe their vote mattered.
Kelsey, who was talking to potential voters in a Detroit park, leads Michigan efforts for NextGen America, which focuses on getting young people to vote, especially in battleground states. He said he hears often from people who feel their vote won’t make a difference.
The people who participate in elections are generally those who are keyed into politics, with the strongest opinions. According to AP VoteCast, about 8 in 10 voters in the 2020 presidential election said they were “extremely interested” in the election, compared to about 3 in 10 nonvoters. Nonvoters were much more likely to be only “somewhat interested” in the election.
In other ways, 2020 nonvoters were just less plugged in to politics. They were more likely to not know enough to have an opinion on the vice presidential nominees or the Democratic or Republican Parties, AP VoteCast found.
About one-quarter of nonvoters said a general dislike of politics would prevent them from voting in the election. About 2 in 10 said they didn’t like the candidates generally — and they were more likely than voters to have an unfavorable view of both Donald Trump and Biden.
She said people who don’t vote are often judged by others based on preconceptions they have about nonvoters, but that “most of us have a reason why we don’t vote.”
Rojas said she voted in 2016 before skipping 2020. This year, the 26-year-old said she is unlikely to vote in the contest between Trump and Harris because she opposes the Biden administration’s policies regarding the Israel-Hamas war, and specifically its support for Israel.
“Currently my biggest issue with U.S. politics is the response to the Palestinian genocide,” Rojas said.
The Israel-Hamas war has raised passions and led to protests, from college campuses to August’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where a few thousand protesters marched through the streets to call for a cease-fire.
Zak Ciocher, 25, a truck driver for construction suppliers from outside Atlantic City, New Jersey, isn’t voting in November. He’s especially dissatisfied with the candidates for president, saying he doesn’t believe their policy proposals will change the lives of Americans for the better.
“I feel that neither Donald Trump or Kamala Harris represent me and my values nor do I believe they have any of our best intentions in mind,” he said. “Voting for a lesser of two evils is still voting for an evil especially for two political parties that don’t care about us.”
Star Pattillo of Des Moines, Iowa, a 40-year-old district manager for a restaurant chain, last voted in 2012, when she felt it was important to support Barack Obama. Pattillo, who is Black, felt a sense of pride in voting for Obama, the first Black president, as she did in 2008.
But she said she didn’t see things change noticeably under Obama, and has been uninspired by candidates and the electoral process since — even with Harris on the ballot. She doesn’t plan to vote this fall.
“We’re all supposed to be for the first woman, the first Black woman, president,” she said. “I get it.”
“But I’m still struggling,” she said, explaining that her wages have increased, but that costs have increased more. “So, tell me, what’s she going to do that fundamentally changes that?”
In Michigan, where the Center for Inclusive Democracy says nearly two million eligible voters didn’t vote in the 2020 presidential election, residents across the Detroit area gave a range of reasons for not voting during interviews this summer.
One man handing out religious pamphlets downtown quoted Psalm 118, which speaks of not placing trust in men, and said he’d never voted. Another man who works in private security said registering to vote could make information such as his addresses and political party affiliation available publicly, leading to a loss of privacy and potentially clients.
Aside from personal reasons, structural barriers affect who votes. The FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll found all voters, regardless of how frequently they cast a ballot, experienced barriers such as waiting in lines at polling places.
In some states, voters must register with a political party to participate in a primary, known as a “closed” primary election. Nick Troiano, executive director of Unite America, said closed primaries effectively disenfranchise independent voters, including some from the “only election that matters” if they are in a heavily Republican or Democratic area.
“Of course that could lead some to feel so powerless and disengaged that they opt out entirely,” he said.
Millions of people with criminal justice involvement are prohibited by state laws from casting ballots, although the trend has been toward a restoration of voting rights. Voter identification requirements in some states impact would-be poll-goers, especially the homeless.
Activists across a spectrum of organizations are working to get the numbers up.
In June, several thousand people from dozens of organizations came to Washington, D.C., for the Poor People’s March on Washington and to the Polls. The goal was to highlight the plight of millions of poor people who organizer the Rev. William Barber II called “the real swing vote.”
Kelsey, who leads NextGen America in Michigan, said his job is to change the reluctance. He and his team spent hours this summer in Spirit Plaza in Detroit, a gathering place with tables and food trucks where office workers and people with no fixed addresses convene, talking to people and trying to get them to sign cards promising to vote.
Several of the people with whom Kelsey and his colleagues spoke promised to vote, while the team also got others like Jones.
“People have been disillusioned by the idea of voting because it’s not the overnight change,” Kelsey said.
“We’re not going to make a magical wine that’s going to change everything tomorrow.”