<Music> Welcome to Party Politics, where we prepare you for your next political conversation.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus also a political science professor here at the University of Houston.

Thanks for hanging out.

Talk a little politics with us.

This week we're going to talk about voting.

Not because we are voting right now, I don't think at least check that.

And I'm like, make sure.

Yeah.

I don't think we are.

Okay.

Good.We're set.

But what we're going to talk about really, is about why voter turnout is so low and maybe some strategies for how to make it better.

This is something the state has confronted for a very long time.

We like to think the state is really good at everything.

Football.

Barbecue.

The best barbecue in Texas is, by definition, the best barbecue in the universe.

But voter turnout is terribly low in the state, and it has almost always been.

So the question is sort of why that's the case and then what the rules are that make that more or less the structural kind of outcome that we as political scientists would expect, given those indications.

And finally, like, what can we do about it?

Political science can help us a lot, actually, to find these kind of different experiments that help us to understand why it's happening and then to solve it.

So there's lots of opportunities for the state to be able to improve it.

If we are creative and willing to invest in these kinds of solutions.

Indeed.

It's a big if - But let's talk about it anyway, because this is something that's really important, right?

I mean, obviously, without belaboring it, too much participatory democracy relies on people coming to vote.

And if we don't have as many people coming to vote, you simply have a smaller share of opinions that are going to be heard.

And that means you're going to have a much smaller segment of the population represented and the policy outcomes are going to be narrowly connected to that.

So the big question, I guess, to start with is just why is voter turnout so low in Texas?

What are the reasons?

I think that it has to do.

With lack of understanding, of the implications of not voting.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the first thing is whoever wins a majority, whether it's in the state legislature or whatever it is, has a fiduciary right to implement the policies in which those persons were running.

Right.

So either conservative, they and they have the majority.

Yeah.

Guess what?

We're going to get a majority of conservative policies.

And if it's liberals then you're going to get whatever it is that they do.

Yeah.

Right.

So we wouldn't know because that doesn't really exist in Texas.

Right?

It almost never has a right way that's recognizable out of place.

Indeed.

But but that is something extremely important, right?

But but that is something extremely important, right?

So if people start complaining, oh my God, I don't like this.

I don't like that.

Well, I mean, yeah, like the only you have You have to vote.

The only resource that you have is to vote.

Yeah.

So part of the I think of, of what we have been failing in terms is trying to explain to people, right, the importance of their vote in the sense of it has implications for your life.

It has implications in terms of taxes.

It has implications in terms of what you can and cannot do.

It has implications in terms of the policies for the future, for your schools, so on and so forth.

So if you're able to explain that in a way that people understand is going to be something interesting.

Drawing a close connection between you voting and for a particular party or person, and then the outcomes in terms of your preferences, taxes or, you know, whatever it is.

And the problem with that, right.

It sounds, very nice, but the problem with that That would be great.

is that you enter the issue of collective action.

Right?

And the issue of collective action is that if you are a rational individual, said, like whatever, my vote doesn't count because it's one out of thousands.

Yeah.

So I cannot swing an election anywhere or shape.

Yeah.

The problem is when every single person thinks the same.

Yeah.

And only a very small minority of voters in terms of numbers, control the election, control the outcomes, and therefore control the policies.

Yes.

There is this concern that primary elections do that.

There's actually kind of a movement afoot in terms of like sort of people who study voting to suggest we should just get rid of primaries, because primaries really are the thing that produces the most extreme individuals.

Right?

But as a result, then you have kind of these two very distant ideological options, which doesn't really represent people fully.

Right?

So that then, of course, if you have a narrow number of people voting in a primary, and then you have a gerrymandered district which supports either team Red or Team Blue, like regardless of who that nominee is in almost every case, then the outcome is going to be something that most people are unsatisfied with.

So I think that's definitely a concern.

But there's more to this.

I think, to the fact that Texas is almost always been a one party state is a serious problem.

So you get to the question of motivation, right?

Like, why should I vote?

Is the question people ask themselves, right?

And we have like 100 economic and political science explanations for why people do and don't vote.

But it comes down to the following.

But do people feel efficacious about their vote?

That is, do they feel like that their vote matters?

Well, if it's a one party state and or a one party district, then you think, yeah, probably it doesn't, because this isn't something that to me matters, right?

I could vote for the other team and it's never going to matter.

I could vote for the team that's going to win anyway.

And what's the difference?

So.

Right.

That really creates this kind of lack of efficacy.

So the one party state rule is definitely an issue.

But there are other issues too, right?

I mean, the structural components of the rules also dictate this, right?

So for instance, how we vote matters.

The states that vote by mail, like Minnesota and like Oregon, Washington state, they have a tremendous number of people voting, their voter registration rates, their voter turnout.

Yeah.

Turnout rates are like 70 plus percent.

That's way higher than the national average.

Yeah, in part because they mail you ballot, you fill out the ballot with the documentation they give you.

You do your research, you send it back and you voted.

Right?

Yeah.

Unfortunately there's no sticker action.

Right.

So you're not going to get to kind of brag about it.

But who cares when you have 80% of people voting?

So that's something that is kind of one element that can be a successful outcome here, where Texas doesn't do that.

Right.

It's funny because the history of how registration has operated in Texas has basically always had this kind of limitation.

Right.

For a long time there were these illegal measures in place, right, that basically wouldn't allow for certain kinds of people to vote.

Right?

Certain ethnic and racial minorities were allowed to vote for various reasons or vote in primaries or parties.

Those kinds of things have been sort of largely washed away, but the vestiges of those things are still there.

So even something like registration rules, in terms of when you can register right, you have to be registered, you know, the kind of six days before the election.

That definitely is something that is a burden.

It's a hurdle, and it's one of those things that other states have done away with and said, you know what?

We can register today to vote today.

That's an easy solution.

But it's complicated because the politics of it create these issues.

But those rules all matter, right?

How long you have early voting for right.

That matters too.

So all those kinds of measures definitely a piece of this.

But I want to kind of kick it back to you and ask the question about youth and voting.

Texas is a pretty young state and also is a kind of very diverse state.

And so this is obviously, an issue that the state confronts when it comes to voter turnout, because these are groups that are less likely to vote.

What does that mean in terms of total turnout?

And how does Texas compare to other kinds of states?

Well, I mean, it's extremely important because the norm is at the national level.

And every other, state, younger people tend to participate at lower rates.

That's normal.

As you mature, then you start participating more.

Yeah.

You get marriage, you get a mortgage, and you get money.

Right?

The three things that you get when you get older are better predictors of voting.

Right.

So one of the the important things is to start inculcating to young people, right, the issue and how important voting is, and that it is not only a civic duty, but it's also something that you need to do in order to be a member of your community.

So when you start inculcating done and start saying you need to show up.

And that's it.

And yes, it is complicated sometimes to vote.

It takes time but is something that you must do.

And frankly we have not been doing a great job especially when we're thinking about middle school and high school in terms of inculcating these civic responsibility.

Civic courses are completely gone from, the Texas curriculum.

Right.

And it has to be a mandatory course to inculcate to kids, right, that you are a member of the polity.

You are a member of your community, and that membership requires you to do one, two, three and the same thing that requires you to be a member of Amazon Prime or to be a member of of a of a gym.

You have to be engaging in that so you can see the benefits of X, Y, or Z. I wish I could see more benefits from it.

I noticed you got to go more often.

Yeah that's right.

Yeah.

It's my issue.

To the gym.

To the gym.

I know.

I know, it's always a problem.

I'm there with you.

Texas is a unique state for lots of reasons that, is burdened with some of the things that other states aren't.

So we're really big.

It's like, kind of very urban.

And so turnout is a challenge because sometimes it's hard to turn people out in these urban areas.

So, for instance, if you look at the kind of polling when we ask people questions about, like the degree to which they're likely to turn out and the obstacles they face, things like transportation is suggested by 14% of Texans as a reason they don't turn out to vote.

It's 5% for Florida.

So, I mean, Texas has similar components to Florida, but the kind of sprawl of it is a challenge.

Questions about like having a correct form of identification is another.

There was a huge fight about voter ID right about a decade back.

The voter ID issue, obviously, to limit who's going to be able to vote and even though the actual kind of outcomes on this is mixed, right, it's not a clear kind of it's going to hurt overall.

It's actually sort of, mixed in terms of the outcome, but for sure, it's definitely hurting some people's ability to vote.

So that's a huge factor.

But it's also just the kind of fear of it.

Right.

Not knowing if you have the right ideas is another thing.

Correct.

I guess back to your question and your point about education.

Telling people and informing people about what they have to have to do.

It is important.

And that's really hard.

We actually know this, some of my undergraduates and I did a study that looked at the county websites of the county, voter registrars and, and kind of, in the counties in terms of the information they're giving about voting.

And it's wildly disparate, like the big urban counties have the money, they have the expertise to be able to have really engaging kind of documentation and videos and sort of, you know, very colorful kind of graphics about how to vote.

Even in times of crisis, like we did this during Covid, but other counties don't do anything.

It's the websites are outdated.

They don't have the updated information about where to vote.

So there are lots of differences there in terms of sort of how the people are educated about what's going on.

And that creates this imbalance in terms of turnout.

So if people aren't educated, it's going to make it harder for them to, you know, figure out what's the right thing for them to do.

Vote by mail.

I mean, that's that's the easiest way to increase these.

But again, you need that kind of, education and you need that kind of preparation.

Yeah.

Well, so let me ask this.

Republicans say vote by mail is where fraud lives.

Is this true?

And how true is it as a kind of consequence of, you know, balanced with the outcome, which is you know, huge voter turnout?

No, I mean, there is no significant evidence, of course, in every single election, you're going to have hiccups.

In every single election, you're going to have someone that purposely or not did something wrong in, in, in terms of voting.

Right.

However, there is no significant evidence that, voting by mail increases electoral fraud, right?

We had that voter in 2016, that election.

It was like, no, do not vote by mail.

But then, in the 2020, election, we have differences.

And then in the 2024 election, it was like, yeah, do vote by mail.

Yeah.

So I mean, but but it's easier, right?

If you want to make things easier, especially when you're thinking about younger generations.

Right?

Yeah.

Younger generations are, 100% completely used to get their stuff immediate.

Yeah.

Right.

They don't have to go to the to the, music store.

To record store to buy a CD.

Right.

It doesn't exist that.

They don't anymore.

You do Spotify or whatever it is.

Boom.

It's right here.

Yeah.

Right there.

So voting has to be like that.

And we have the technology.

We have the securities in order to make voting, even electronic voting secure.

Yes.

If we can send money from here to London in 30 seconds Right.

And the money gets there, boom.

Just like that.

Yeah, we can definitely vote.

Yeah.

Via an app or something like that.

This technology was promised after the 2000 election.

As you recall, the the the federal government put a lot of money and resources and organization behind basically reforming how voting happened in this country.

Right?

They did a pretty good job in terms of providing some funds to local governments to be able to update their voting system.

So like places like Harris County have got more newfangled equipment now.

So now we can vote with touchscreen and things like that.

But it didn't affect everybody because not everyone had the ability to, apply the that money and the promise of it kind of disappeared a little bit right after 20 after the 2000 election, which most people will forgot.

But yeah, we certainly didn't.

You know, it was this kind of long, drawn out scenario.

The problem was the root of kind of how we were voting.

Right.

And for in particular.

But it wasn't just a Florida problem, it was a problem kind of across the country.

Well, you know, fast forward to today, that money runs out and we're still confronting some of those same technological issues that were problematic back, you know, 25 years ago.

So those kinds of issues still have to be resolved.

And it really takes money, honestly.

And that's the one thing I think that mostly people aren't willing to pay up for, like spending money on voting seems like a waste.

Right.

And I can see this from a legislative perspective.

Like I have so many things that have to be funded.

I have all these different experiences that come to me.

Sure... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For projects, am I going to spend $1 million, $2 million, $10 million on voting equipment?

Yeah, like that's a hard sell.

But I mean, and the other problem with that is not only having the technologies about the implementation.

Yeah.

So we have 15 different ways by which every state vote and then yeah, counties at the end are going to be the responsible for implementing those things.

And they actually run the elections.

Yeah.

So just in Texas you have 254 ways.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

To implement an election.

Yeah.

So of course given state laws so on and so forth.

Yeah.

But there's a lot of variation.

Yeah.

And that doesn't give you that certainty in terms of, yeah, I don't know.

It has become a political issue.

Right.

Obviously.

And I don't want to say that this is a Republican thing or a Democratic thing, because if you look back in history, when the Democrats ran Texas, they were just like the Republicans are now.

They want to limit the electorate.

That's the smart play.

You're in power.

You want to make sure your voters are voting, and the other voters are not.

Like, that's just the sort of way things are.

And history has shown that that's exactly true.

So this isn't something that's like unique somehow to Republicans these days.

But for sure, that's what's going on right now.

And so restricting those rules and limiting the ability for how people vote is certainly going to obviously restrain who votes.

Right.

So things like banning drive through voting, right, 24 hour voting.

Yeah.

These were little, kind of innovations that were tried during Covid with the hope that there would be sort of an opportunity to be able to bring people to vote, like the number of people who took advantage.

That was really small, but at least it showed there was some interest in terms of trying to meet voters where they are.

Right, making it more convenient.

That's the whole thing.

And once those things go away, or the states decide that they're not going to let that happen, it creates this kind of real blanket effect where then sort of very few counties are willing to innovate.

We're going to do the best we can.

But right, that's not going to get us there.

Voting is also, I mean, to start with the very simple thing that could increase turnout.

Yeah, right.

Is to make national elections or state elections or whatever it is, a holiday.

Yeah.

I love that.

It's very simple, right.

Or having on a Sunday or some like...

But elections are held on a Tuesday.

Right, right.

On a Tuesday.

People have stuff to do.

Sometimes they're held in summer, sometimes they're held, you know, on a Saturday.

Right.

Like this is the problem, right?

Where again, you know, you have to kind of meet people where they are, right?

Right.

And there are moments here where the state is doing a good job at kind of expanding early voting, and that increases the chances that people might go vote.

But again, early voting is really for people who are going to vote anyway.

It just makes it sort of more convenient.

So I'm all in favor of that.

But we're talking about people who like, don't vote, right.

You've got, you know, millions of people in the state who don't vote.

And that by itself is obviously kind of one limitation.

But let me before we get into more details about kind of how to solve this problem, I want to ask you about people who are not registered to vote eligible but not registered.

There are about 2 million people in Texas who fit this criteria, right.

We talk a lot about people who don't vote, and certainly there are a lot too many of them.

But there are also a lot of people who are eligible to vote who are not registered to vote.

What is happening there?

Is this the party's at fault is the candidates who aren't interesting enough, is it?

The rules are too complicated.

What is keeping people from getting registered to vote?

I think it's a combination.

Yeah, right.

Because, in order for you to get registered to vote, you have to take some kind of action.

Yeah, right.

Either you have to go and get your new driver's license right.

You have to go to the county register and say, I want to, send me a form.

Yeah, so I can go so I can vote.

Yes.

Extremely complicated.

Right.

To get you to get the form.

And people that are not registering or eligible to vote most of the times have certain characteristics, right.

Those characteristics can be, for example, that they do not have transportation.

Yeah.

That they don't have a valid ID.

Yeah.

That they don't have, you know, a combination of many things.

Right.

Yeah.

And you should... Or think they don't have it.

Right.

In which case they just kind of drop it all together.

Right.

Because it's complicated.

Right?

It's like, oh, in order to vote, you need if you misread or something like that.

US passport.

Yeah.

Well, I don't have a US passport.

Then I don't vote.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's not only our US passport.

You can use your driver's license, state, ID, to show military ID, so on and so forth.

Right.

Yeah.

So.

No, that's right.

And that gets back to money in education, right?

It takes time and money to spend to get.

Right.

But educated about the abilities to vote.

We need like a voting concierge, right where it's like, I'm going to help you specifically to walk through it.

How about AI as a tool that lets people say like, okay, here's how you're going to register to vote.

Do you have the following?

If not, okay.

Do you have this?

If not that Yeah.

That would work.

Here are the rules about this.

Do you have to do it this way?

In this way?

Right.

Sort of.

There is this adaptive technology that's so pervasive now that gives us the opportunity to be able to let people have those chances to kind of understand where they are, what they need, and whether they're eligible or not to vote.

Because maybe at the end of the day, you're not eligible.

But I think at least want to give people the opportunity to understand where they are and then move from there.

But let's talk more about this sort of opportunities to vote and to use political science and the kind of findings that people have had over the past couple of decades experimentally, to see if it can move the needle.

One thing that's interesting to me is that it's a very simple thing, but if you thank people for voting, they will vote.

And I think that's a nice reinforcement mechanism.

Right.

So what experiments do basically is like send a thank you card to people who have already voted saying, hey, you voted in the last election.

Thank you so much.

The next elections, by the way, coming up, you know, please vote.

That has a pretty positive effect on getting people to turn out to vote.

The other thing is, and I'm almost embarrassed to say this.

Shame, right?

Yeah.

Frankly.

Also embarrassment.

Right?

Like, you embarrass people by saying, look, your neighbors all voted.

You haven't voted yet.

Like you should get out there and do it.

That kind of monitoring has an effect to which we sort of experiment to within ourselves.

Right.

So what are the kind of things are there that make it kind of interesting and make it useful to, you know, kind of, have a creative way to encourage people to vote?

Well, another way, I mean, in addition to shame, in addition to thanking people, is their connection with their community.

So there's has been some research that has been done by, some of our grad students.

Right.

It's connecting voters with their community.

And showing this is our community and this is how we're going to stay strong.

So civic participation is one way of showing how that connection will motivate people to go out and vote.

And then also, I mean, it's not only on the individual level, right.

It's also these institutional level.

That is, if you're not engaged, as many voters are, in the electoral process.

Yeah.

So you're not going to do it.

Yeah.

I mean it's complicated.

It is.

Yeah.

I mean, just to find out, for example, if you want to do a good job, the number of elected positions that you have to research, there are a lot.

Ballot length is a huge issue.

Ballot length is a huge issue.

We don't have straight, ticket voting anymore.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So those things are complicating the costs associated with the potential benefit?

No, I like the way you put that, because costs is how one calculates the sort of economic benefit of voting.

Right?

Like I said earlier, you kind of efficacy is a combination of what the benefit it to you is and what the cost is.

And as the cost rise, it outweighs the benefit and thereby becomes a kind of issue.

So you have to make it more convenient for people and all these different creative ways.

Right.

Because the way that conv is made is and I always tell my students, right, when are you going to buy the next, you know, headphone things, right.

You do a lot of research and you say, well I'm going to do that.

Yeah.

The earbuds or whatever they call.

Yeah.

Or the little things that go inside the ear or these are that noise cancellation.

You're still using like a big shell right.

That connects to your turntable.

But yeah.

But nowadays with the cables.

But those things, right.

They spend time because they want to get the best deal.

Yeah.

And the same thing is for politics.

Right.

So also on the other hand, candidates, right have to be more clear in terms of what they're selling.

Yeah.

What's going to be the policy that they're selling.

Unfortunately, the policy discussions are the least discussions that candidates have.

And they think about, you know, raw meat thrown to the lions to discuss these things because that the thing that motivates people.

It motivates the people who are most likely to vote.

And that is not the kind of people who otherwise Exactly.

...look at this and say, I need to go participate because my future is on the line.

Right.

But then is this issue about accountability?

It's like, no, I'm not voting for you because you haven't talked about the policies.

You have talked about only politics.

Yeah.

Not policies.

So true.

That would be also a way of holding elected officials accountable.

Yeah.

Like really accountable.

This is what are you going to do 123.

Have you done 123 yes or no.

No okay.

Thank you for your service.

Bye.

Yeah.

Total next.

One.

Yeah.

No I think you're right.

And I think that education components are really important.

I think making Election Day an event would be really useful.

Oh, yeah.

It's actually ironic because some people find that having kind of one day for Election Day as a motivator to vote is really important.

And it means longer lines and means more pressure on poll workers that one day.

But early voting actually in some ways detracts from that.

Which makes logical sense, because like having that one big, bright moment, that big day of election day is important.

But look, I think you're right.

You give people the day off.

We could, you know, give that sort of as an opportunity.

I feel like we have to have a new deal for voting.

I feel like we have to have a kind of real kind of renaissance in terms of how we approach voting in this country, really encouraging people to do it, educating people, giving people all these opportunities to vote as many as possible.

Yeah.

Now this is pie in the sky stuff, right?

Oh, like big picture stuff.

Right?

Like if I, you and I, if I go to the gym.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great.

Great.

See you.

There tomorrow.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I mean that's what you want.

Yeah, yeah.

You know that's the problem.

Yeah.

Like we have to kind of set the stage for this.

And so I feel like if we really invested in this that we could definitely do it and people would respond to it because this is really the kind of way that the country was founded.

Yeah.

But we have all these competing interests sure have to participate with their own opinions, choices, and then things get better.

Is the incentive structure for the powers that be to make these decisions on both sides of the aisle.

So true.

Yeah.

So and the answer to that is like, I don't think so.

Yeah.

And I think also two part of that is revamping how we teach civics and government in this country.

Like the what we're, we're kind of required to teach is like the nuts and bolts of it, who is elected when and for how long.

Yeah, these are all important functional, foundational questions.

But there is another part of this, which is about kind of what this all means, like how people participate in this process, how important it is, what the history of it is empowering students to make these kinds of choices.

So that works for younger people and older people, too, right?

Who may have lost the thread when it comes to where we are in this democracy.

I mean, just explaining the connection between life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

No other country on this earth has those principles, and those principles are just manufactured within our democratic political system.

That needs us to help.

Absolutely.

So that's it for this week.

And also that's it for this season of Party Politics, which we want to thank everyone.

Yeah.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for watching.

It's been a pleasure to bring you kind of great political information.

And so hopefully we'll see you next fall.

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