Austin American-Statesman Columnist Ken Herman: "Take Away [Hispanic's] Right to Vote"

Better solutions (3.00 / 1)

In the 2008 municipal elections - which featured some heated City Council races - the number of folks voting on AISD propositions was around 7% at 31,614 votes.  The vote total of 8,956 in the Barksdale-Cowan race (which had no City Council races to amplify turnout) is closer to 2% turnout.  Clearly, lack of participation in Austin elections goes way beyond the Latino population. I'm pretty sure plenty of non-Hispanics skipped this vote!

If Mr. Herman had adjusted for the relative youth and lower socio-economic status of Latino voters, then he would have found what social scientists already uncovered: that the "Hispanic" ethnicity as a unique independent variable is at most a limited contributor to low turnout, and often is not associated with lower turnout at all.

Most distressingly, Mr. Herman offers no real solutions to Hispanic and non-Hispanic low voter turnout.  His shaming prose might be emotionally gratifying to his readership, but I am pretty certain that the 98% of people that did not vote, Hispanic and non-Hispanic alike, are never going to read or hear about his resentments. They have better things to do.

And that is really the problem.  Because he went the ethnic essentialist route, Mr. Herman denied himself with the opportunity to familiarize himself with the vast (really vast) social science literature on political participation.  Getting people to vote is hard because voting is irrational...the chance of a person casting a tie-breaking vote that affects strongly held policy preferences is very, very low.  

So if a "Hispanic" voter exists in society saturated with media thriving on emotional opinion instead of insightful facts, with a campaign funding model that makes it difficult for working people to run and their issues to be prioritized, with public institutions that can be impenetrable and aloof (if not hostile) to her concerns, and political organizations that use clumsy heuristics like zip codes and surnames to target voter mobilization, then is it really her moral failure if she doesn't turnout? Not really. It would be pretty rational, not lazy.

As it turns out (!), there are many concrete things we can do to boost participation.  Let's have fewer elections. Let's have publicly-financed campaigns.  Let's support non-profit news dailies that focus on local substance. We can use compensated citizen juries instead of exclusively relying on the existing outreach model. Single-member districts in Austin would probably help with participation. And we learn from the civic literacy successes focused on youth from both American and European initiatives and bring them to scale in Austin.  We would all benefit from the greater choice and competition these changes would bring about.


www.keepaustinwonky.wordpress.com + www.twitter.com/juliogatx

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by: Julio Gonzalez Altamirano @ Wed May 12, 2010 at 00:52:53 AM UTC

Boosting Participation (3.00 / 1)

I agree that voter burnout may be a factor.  It's certainly worth looking at consolidating some of our election dates and at allowing for instant runoffs.  The current runoffs for AISD and ACC are great examples in favor of instant runoffs.  After a low, low turn-out election we're going to spend several hundred thousand dollars on an election and campaigns for an even lower turn-out runoff.  It just doesn't make any sense.  I agree that we need to look at what has worked to increase voter participation elsewhere and employ those practices in Austin and in Texas as a whole.

Also, after watching the aftermath of last week's parliamentary elections in England, we've seen again how a parliamentary system allows for a wider range of voices to be heard in an election and in the construction of a government.  The American winner-take-all model forces us into a two-party system.  Whereas, we're seeing voters increasingly define themselves as independents, disassociating themselves from political debate and participation.  This is something else we need to look at (See 2000 Election - Florida).

While it isn't directly relevant to the most recent election, I agree with you that single-member districts would benefit Austin.  I would even assert that the lack of single-member districts is contributing to voter disassociation.  Voters do not know who to turn to in city hall when they have a problem or concern.  Similarly, as they are all elected at large, the council members are not directly accountable to any clear constituency other than the folks that supported their campaign.  Also, we've seen that without districts no member of the city council is responsible for public or private projects.  The County Commissioners Court provides a good example of how an elected official can be held accountable for projects in their district.

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by: Jeb @ Thu May 13, 2010 at 15:33:47 PM UTC

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IRV+PR (0.00 / 0)

I am a fan of both schemes as solutions to certain local and national problems.  I think IRV makes immediate sense for Austin.  Is there an active democracy reform movement in Austin? Anybody organizing on issues like citizen-funded campaigns, IRV, etc.?

www.keepaustinwonky.wordpress.com + www.twitter.com/juliogatx

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by: Julio Gonzalez Altamirano @ Thu May 13, 2010 at 19:01:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's a sad day when the Statesman posts a better column than the Burnt Orange Report. (3.00 / 1)

Ken raises a very good point.  We need to have Hispanic citizens engaged - particularly through voting and education - if our democracy is going to work.  Democrats can be encouraged by the increasing numbers of Hispanics in Texas, but it isn't going to help if they don't vote, don't turn in  their census forms, and don't graduate from high school.

This is a very serious issue that we need to discuss.  Ken's frivolous suggestion was an obvious strawman.  How about throwing out some ideas on how to increase Hispanic participation instead of attacking the strawman?

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by: Jeb @ Wed May 12, 2010 at 14:59:38 PM UTC

I'm all for it (0.00 / 0)

Just wanted to make sure people saw the story first. I'm thrilled to have an ongoing conversation about how to improve the situation.

Now, a very great man once said that some people rob you with a fountain pen.

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by: Phillip Martin, Progress Texas @ Wed May 12, 2010 at 15:00:35 PM UTC

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Is it ethnicity? (3.00 / 1)

Jeb: I agree with you that Herman was creating a strawman. But his examples and tone make it seem that he agrees with the idea that there is something cultural that explains low-turnout, and his focus makes it seem that people of color sub-groups are disproportionately to blame, which is odd given that 98% of voters didn't come out. And his use of shame as a solution doesn't seem really intended to make things better. We need a proper diagnosis to pick the right cure, so to speak.

I suggested various solutions to our community-wide (Hispanic and non-Hispanic) turnout and engagement problem in the last paragraph our my earlier comment.  Would appreciate your thoughts on those ideas.

www.keepaustinwonky.wordpress.com + www.twitter.com/juliogatx

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by: Julio Gonzalez Altamirano @ Wed May 12, 2010 at 17:23:25 PM UTC

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Location, Location, Location (3.00 / 1)

Herman's comments are based at the lack of turn-out at specific precincts.

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by: Jeb @ Thu May 13, 2010 at 15:15:59 PM UTC

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Variable (0.00 / 0)

Yes, but he certainly transitions into targeting ethnic sub-groups for shaping. Are those precincts simply Hispanic precincts? Low-income precincts? Young precincts? Probably all of them. Focusing on shaming an ethnicity as opposed to exploring the interplay class, or age, or the quality of political and civic organizations (Herman does talk about candidate quality, but I agree that's not really key) doesn't strike me as the best way to build a movement for boosting participation.

www.keepaustinwonky.wordpress.com + www.twitter.com/juliogatx

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by: Julio Gonzalez Altamirano @ Thu May 13, 2010 at 18:57:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I agree with you Jeb (0.00 / 0)

What does being Hispanic or minority have to do with low voter turnout? Lots of Austin voters apparently slacked on this one. From all walks of life as well as ethnicity.

Ken Herman could just have easily picked on women right?  Didn't we women also have to fight for our right to vote?  Aren't women also to blame for not turning out?  

You know the real culprit is the Hispanic woman.  I know I'm one of them.  Sadly I did not turn out to vote this past weekend.  It's not that I didn't know the election was going on and I had every intention of voting, but something came up and I was out of town this weekend.  And I had not early voted.  So I am to blame completely for letting down my not-so-long-ago ancestors, my entire race as well as the city of Austin.  Mi culpa!

Part of the problem with school board election low turnout rates is that they fall on weekends.  Normally early voting on a weekend works great, but an actual election on a weekend, not so great.  Most people at least have to be in town during the week.  And people are so very busy on Saturdays.  Not a complete excuse - but it's mine and I'm sticking to it.

By the way I plan to vote in the runoff and I will early vote this time, just in case.

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by: sonia @ Wed May 12, 2010 at 21:30:44 PM UTC

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