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

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

We are political science professors here at the University of Houston.

Thanks for hanging out, talking politics with us.

We're going to shift gears a little bit this week and talk broadly about something that is always important to democracy, really the cornerstone of democratic rule.

And that's voting.

The problem is most people don't vote.

That's especially true for Texas.

We like to think that Texas is tops in everything barbecue football, but we are almost at the bottom of every list in terms of turnout.

Sometimes it increases.

We see a bump because of competition, but oftentimes we're at the very bottom at list.

So we range from 30 ish percent in midterms to 50% in presidential.

And don't even get me started about municipal elections where turnout is like in the single digits.

Well, you and I have done a lot of academic work on this.

We're going to share some of it today.

But let's talk about what, generally speaking, motivates people to vote.

Why do people choose to vote?

And then if they don't choose to vote, what happens there?

Well, I mean, so it's a very complicated question.

Yeah, it is, but usually.

Motivation of voting has to do with a person's, civic duty.

Right.

If you want to put it like in, in substantive terms, yes.

There are other variables and make you or indicate if you're going to be more likely to vote, for example, higher income, higher education.

Partizanship.

So on and so forth.

Right.

But the real motivation is in terms of being a citizen, an active citizen in the democratic process and understanding how a democracy like ours is a representative democracy.

When you have a agent principal model, right, we are the voters.

We are the principals and elected officials, the agents enact on our behalf.

So once you understand that the issue of being motivated to participate in any election, especially local elections, because those are the most important elections.

And yet people aren't voting exactly.

Are the ones that have more implications for daily life.

Yeah.

So I think that civic engagement and understanding these very fragile relationship is what motivates people.

Yeah.

A lot of political scientists talk about voting in terms of cost, right.

That is, every vote has a cost to it.

So that the cost isn't just about like the gas you put in your car to get to the polling place.

It's about the time it takes you to figure out where that polling place is, who you should vote for, and all of the long ballots that we have here in Texas, which is another reason that you see people not voting because it's kind of confusing and time consuming.

So cost is a factor too.

And so the things you're talking about totally makes sense, where if you have higher income, you've got higher education.

Generally speaking, those things correlate to higher turnout because the cost is lower.

You know how to figure out where to go to vote and who you're going to vote for.

And so it kind of reduces your cost in general.

True.

Right.

Granted.

Yes.

If we're living in 1952.

Yes.

This is when the famous classic works were written about this.

Exactly right.

But, I mean, I now tend to question that finding of the literature.

Right?

Because if we put something more mundane without any other implications.

Right.

Or significant implications, like, for example, buying a pair of headphones, you know, you have 11,000 things to choose, right?

Right.

You have to invest time.

Yeah, right.

In looking for the best deal.

Once you find the model that you want, if it's noise canceling and your feet wide, if it's black, if it's another color, if it's over the ear.

If it's inside the ear.

If it's big marks the can.

Yeah.

Well this or that, it's actually right.

So you're also investing in something to buy a product.

So if we see the market as a market.

I mean you would expect that if you want to buy something you're going to put a little bit of effort.

Yeah.

Okay.

Right.

Well sure.

You hope people put effort into it and sometimes people do.

But that's also time consuming.

And voting is a little bit more complicated because like unlike buying something on Amazon.com where you can look at reviews and you can get a brand kind of that you're attracted to, voting is not always so straightforward.

There aren't as many brands, right?

And there are a lot of different options in terms of candidates.

But you know, sometimes researching which ones are the right ones are hard.

There are shortcuts.

People take party as a shortcut.

We call this a voting heuristic.

So you know, oftentimes people aren't.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

There you go.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Chapter and verse.

Look at this guy Ivy League.

And so yeah, those are things that definitely can like make it easier for voters.

But and their voter guides, you know, that are produced there's a lot of great stuff happening.

But the trouble is that when you're in a position where you don't have access to that, or maybe you're not so sure exactly where to start, it can be a costly.

Right.

So those things do have a tendency to kind of create that.

There are other structural issues, too, that are complicated and make it harder for people to vote.

So, for instance, voter registration restrictions in a place like Texas, you have to register to vote before you go vote.

And some places you can vote day of that is we know in general that like if you have fewer those kinds of restrictions, then you are more likely to, you know, participate because it's just easier for you to show up and say, I don't know where I'm supposed to vote.

I don't know that I'm registered, but you can still do it on that day.

So that's an indication that makes it easier.

Mail voting is another way that you can see voter turnout increase.

This has been fraught with controversy because a lot of Republicans say that this is where fraud lives.

There's certainly some fraud, but not enough that it's, you know, going to change the outcome of a lot of these elections.

And that's been debunked 100 times.

So definitely, those are kind of things that matter in that scheme of things.

We also know that in a place like Texas, that competition drives turnout.

And if there's not much competition because we're basically a one party state, then you're not likely to see real turnout because people don't like necessarily want to invest time in voting for somebody who they know is not going to win.

Right.

And that has to do.

First of all, we the process of redistricting and how, lack of, competition you expect in a race.

But the other factor that is extremely interesting in this dynamic is the fact that, you have a very rapid change in demographics in the state that do not necessarily or may not necessarily align with one or the other political party.

So I think that that puts an honest, especially on younger generations, right, to assert their electoral power that they have.

Right?

Yeah.

And that that could potentially make these races a little bit of, more competitive.

And competition in, in elections is good.

Competition is always good because it transforms it into what we know in the literature as the responsible party model.

Yeah, right.

And that responsible party model is going back to these, market analogy is I'm candidate from X and this is what I want to do.

I want to do one, two, three.

And then I'm candidate for W and I'm going to do 567.

So six seven.

So well done.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So I think that that is going to be extremely, extremely beneficial for Texas democracy.

Yeah I think that's right.

And those are the things that can be definitely changed.

We saw voter turnout higher in the 90s when Texas was a purple state than we do now.

Things are changing a little bit.

And certainly some cycles like the midterm cycle we just saw, you see, you know, a bit of a bump.

But it's still the case that our turnout is pretty low compared to other competitive states.

There are about 2 million people in the state who are otherwise eligible to vote.

But who are not registered to vote.

Right.

The process of registration is part of that story, and that's hard to do.

A lot of the mobilization efforts that we presume are happening aren't happening.

Campaigns are cash strapped.

They don't have the money is a temporary, essentially business to kind of get at every voter, right.

Their goal is to get the voters they think will vote for them.

So by design, they're really only targeting some voters when you do see evidence.

And we'll talk about this in a second of targeting of voters who otherwise, like, aren't party attached.

It's really hard to get them to vote.

And you have to have multiple touches to get them there.

So campaigns really aren't designed to just kind of get democracy functioning.

Let's get things moving like they're designed to kind of get out a specific kind of vote.

So not surprisingly, then the people who vote typically are Partizan in effect.

So that definitely is a mobilization limitation.

And I want to piggyback on something you said.

And that's about efficacy, right?

That is that people don't feel like their vote matters.

Part of that is because of the competition story, right?

Certainly the kind of redistricting issue comes up with that.

But there are a lot of people who don't feel like their vote counts.

And part of it is just, you know, the lack of competition.

Part of it is that they just don't see how their life is affected by politics.

But it's dramatically affected by politics.

Even the smallest thing.

Right, like where stop signs are placed and whether there's a stoplight here and whether there's a speed bump or not.

These things are all really important.

I bring this up because we fought for speed bumps in our neighborhood and eventually got them, and you can see the power of the voice, the attention, the connectivity, they're really pay off.

So I think that's the kind of thing that if people saw it, then they would be more likely to go vote, because they understand that being part of that process is really critical.

Absolutely, 100%.

And I think the speed bumps, which I do not condone, I mean, I know.

It takes you like a full two seconds longer to get over it.

Yeah.

I personally I need I mean, and I think that I should be, compensated.

With your big truck.

Yeah, yeah.

No problem.

You have to fly over those.

50 000, yeah.

Don't worry.

But no, but I think that that illustrates the power of a vote.

Right?

And I think that, the lack of seat.

Real civic education.

Yeah, right.

Why we vote?

Why do we have a democracy?

The role of government.

How?

For example, a municipal ordinance, can impact you, how, independent school districts are funded, etc., etc.

even, since elementary school.

All right.

Yeah, elementary school, middle school, high school that would prepare people to create good citizens in the sense that we have.

Right, 100%.

But we also have a responsibility.

And voting is one of the most important responsibilities that people simply do not do.

Yeah.

And part of the reason that we see Texas sort of low on that list is that we're a very young state, and that can have consequences in terms of people kind of connecting to their communities.

You're more likely to vote when you're rooted in a community.

So I think of it as a three M's.

You've got money, you've got marriages, you got mortgages.

These are things that route people to places.

And so that means that they're more likely to go and vote.

And if you're not staying in the same place for very long or you don't have the association with the community, then you're probably not likely to care that much about things.

And so that reduces your efficacy in general.

And then you're not likely to vote.

So that can cascade all kinds of different ways.

The other thing is that when you look at surveys that ask people about why they don't vote, you see that Texas has a lot of things that, are on a list that don't seem to affect other states.

So, for instance, the percentage of people who say when asked if why they didn't vote, that they're too busy to vote, are they forgot to vote in Texas is about a third of the total people who are surveyed in Virginia, it's 10%.

In Florida, it's 5%.

There are a lot of people who say they don't have the correct form of ID, even though there might.

There are a lot of people who say they don't have transportation, which in a big place like Texas, especially urban, Texas, is very likely.

There are also people who say by a factor of ten that they don't know where to vote and they don't know what the choices are.

So again, this is an education issue that can be overcome.

We'll talk about our magic wand wishes in a few minutes.

But I do think that's one thing you could change.

I think realistically, is sort of educating people about the importance of voting and then giving them tools to be able to go out and vote, because there are a lot of those options there.

But I want to talk in particular about how these things are all meshing together in the state's biggest swing vote, and that's the Latino vote.

On average, the turnout among Latinos is very low.

So the question is why and what it relates, how it relates to some of these other big picture questions about voting.

Well, you have a different type of, Latino electorates, right?

First of all, you don't have a, Humala, Latino electorate that does.

So you have different types.

You have the type that is registered with the same boat, the type that could be registered and is not registered.

Right.

And the type of, people that, simply cannot register because they're not U.S.

citizens.

Right.

And they don't participate.

Yeah.

So when you're thinking about, the Latino electorate is a, sophisticated electorate as any other, chunk of the electorate.

But what it has, I think is lack of these approach.

Right.

There is no consistent, through time, a concerted effort to woo Latinos one side or the other.

Yeah.

So I think that that's, that's important if you're not asked to dance.

Yes.

At the party.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Every time that there is a party, when they invite you to another party, you say no because nobody asked me to dance.

So I'm not going to go.

I'm not going to go.

Yeah, exactly.

As simple as that.

Yeah, fine.

If there is consistency, then you're seeing that and you see that we get ten Republicans right?

Every two years.

It's like, yeah, it's Latinos that are there.

And then boom, yeah we can disappear.

Yeah.

No, that's a great point.

Actually.

This is a kind of wake up call for Democrats to be able to really invest in these communities because like, we're talking about a second, the way to get people who don't frequently vote to vote is to continuously talk to them about.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

By almost the point where you annoy them with it.

And that is obviously has some drawbacks to it.

And that's true for text messaging like we'll talk about.

But you have to get in people's like world.

And if you're in their world and eventually they see the value of it, then you can move the needle even if just a little bit.

So there are all kinds of opportunities there to make things happen.

Yeah.

And, and that's, I think Texas's biggest problem.

Right.

You know, you've got the sort of eligibility issues you mentioned.

You've got the age issue, right?

The Latino community tends to be a bit younger.

Educational attainment, homeownership tends to be a little bit lower.

So those numbers too are complicated in terms of who likely turns out to vote.

Right.

Because we know that those socioeconomic factors are typically pretty highly correlated with voting.

Let's talk about Texas policies, too.

This was a big controversy.

A couple of legislative sessions ago, and the legislature made a lot of changes to how voting happens, in particular limiting ways in which counties can innovate in voting.

Now, during Covid, there was a need to be able to make some changes, to have people vote in a way that was healthy and that was safe.

And eventually the judge said, you can't do that.

So things like 24 hour voting to spread out, voting over a period of time, drive through voting, which Harris County you use.

And then, of course, voter ID, which preceded that, but definitely also according to scholarship, has, the effect of limiting people's ability to vote, not necessarily because of the actual process, but because some people think they don't have the right, even if they do.

Yeah.

So that confusion can be controversial and probably not true in terms of turnout.

So how did these rules affect turnout and what can be done to kind of make them better?

So I mean I see both sides, right?

I see the argument that this is not it should not be put in place.

And now you see the old argument, this should be put in place because.

Of because of ballot safety issues.

Right.

That's the that's the concern Republicans are saying is that like the more you kind of change how voting happens, the less control you have over it from a centralized sort of capacity.

But the problem is that.

When voting occurs right.

Is usually on a Tuesday.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

People work especially those are on their hourly wages.

I mean we as a state impose we have the right to go and take some time to go and vote.

Right.

But other people do not have that right.

Per se.

Right.

Yeah.

They can go and vote during their lunch hour, but, you know, you may or may not vote during your lunch hour.

So I think that the, the reason of, of of of not having, for example, a national holiday election, I think it yeah, makes these innovations counterproductive.

Right.

Because even if we're not going to have that right, then what we need is to have these 24 hour voting thing that would compensate for the people that are on hourly wage or whatever it is, or have a weird shift.

Right.

And can only work, both at 11:39 p.m.. Right, right, right.

Yeah.

So if you're not going to do x, well we have to compensate with Y if we want to see turnout increase.

And I think that a national holiday.

Yeah.

Okay.

To vote would simplify everything.

Cosign on to that.

Back in the 1800s, they used to give people like rum.

They'd roll out barrels, literally, and, like, just give people liquor to go vote, like, as an incentive, probably illegally.

I mean, you can't do that, but I think we can at least give it the day off and then you can go buy your own.

Now imagine, I mean, you make it on, Sunday or, and the next day you don't have work or Monday you change it or even the Tuesday.

Right.

And then you make these long weekend holidays so people can, you know, study over the weekend and then be prepared for Tuesday.

And then Tuesday you have, voting all day.

Yeah, it's a set.

And then you go for tacos or whatever it is.

I like it, you know, that's a winning.

That's a winning day.

Like I love it.

Yeah, totally.

Well, let me ask you about that because there is I think, value in the diversity that the state of Texas has.

But the problem is that communicating the voting capacity is a challenge.

This is especially true for a lot of small counties who simply don't have the resources to connect to people.

We know this because we've done some work with undergraduates, through our election lab, where we look at kind of how counties communicate to their voters, and a lot of them just don't have resources to do it.

Some of them are not following the law either in terms of like what they're supposed to be doing.

So those kinds of problems, I think are a limitation where it's about money.

So your magic wand solution is making Tuesday of Election Day a day off.

I think that's great.

My solution is more money.

You have to spend some money on this and like, let's allocate some real funds to make sure we get communication to voters, to make sure that we have a lot of polling places people can go to to make sure that election officials are paid really well.

And those are things that we can do with just not a lot of money, but enough money that we can push through.

Now, remember back in the day, in the ancient days, in the 2000 election, right?

That obviously country was really worried about how elections were run because of the controversy over the ending of the 20 of the 2000 election.

They put a lot of money into this effort, and commissions were forum to try to find ways to make this better.

That's all fallen by the wayside to some degree, as conversations have really drifted towards like how voting is a problem and how illegal voting is.

Like the biggest scourge.

And so I think we've gotten away from this question about like, let's make okay voting safe.

Sure.

But let's also make it easier.

I can have those two things together.

I think that's a trade off that like Democrats would definitely take.

Yeah.

And also I don't see why not.

I mean, yeah, because on the one hand you are securing elections by having people that are well paid communication systems, more locks, etc., etc., etc., etc.

and then after that having a party on a Tuesday and going out to vote, and then there you go, do.

Your civic duty.

Let's engage.

Yeah.

Like it's like the 4th of July, right.

Like let's make it a fun day.

Like people are in celebrating this process, right?

No matter who you're voting for, you're participating in democracy.

Democracy party.

Like I need space.

We got to come up with a good nickname for it.

Yeah, Democracy Day or something like that.

Yeah, I like that.

I like that I give everybody a voucher for for for free beers.

Yeah, I'd be in favor of that.

I'd vote twice.

If you could.

Not to say that that's that's illegal.

So don't do it, okay?

Just just drink on.

Your advice, I won't.

I'll just drink ten years.

I'm a semi lawyer.

Yeah, totally.

Well, let's talk about turnout among people who generally don't turnout.

Now, we know as we said, that people who are otherwise inclined to vote typically have kind of higher socioeconomic status.

They tend to be more partizan in affiliation.

That's a natural outcome in terms of how the process has gone, given the current situation.

But you and I have done a lot of academic work on the question about how to get people to turnout who normally don't vote.

We work with organizations who are targeting voters and low propensity voting neighborhoods, voting deserts effectively.

What are some of the things that we found that basically are tools or a roadmap to be able to get people who otherwise are not engaged in politics and don't vote to come out and vote?

I think that that process of communication and trying to explain why voting is important is extremely important.

And once you explain in a very simple way, why voting for a county judge, right.

Well, first of all, what does the county judge.

Yeah, yeah, I'll.

Start at the beginning.

Yeah.

Right.

Does.

But once you pass that hurdle, I think it's important just to communicate the implications that they have.

Right.

And those implications have to do with every little single thing that happens in our lives.

As you say, the speed bumps, the stop sign, water, right.

If the water is clean, when you open your tap, if you have enough water pressure, though everything has to do with government and everything has to do with those that are running government, usually elected officials.

So once you explain that and your responsibility in terms of why you are going to be a participant of the democratic process and the decisions that are going to be made in your community, I think that that's extremely important.

And you have seen it and I've seen it when we talk to students, is local elections are the most important elections the least participate in elections.

So if you're thinking, well, my vote doesn't matter in local elections, matters and matters a. Lot, a lot.

Yeah.

If put your share of the kind of participatory structure bigger.

Yeah, right.

It's huge.

And also in terms of generational aspirational goals.

Right.

Yeah.

Our generation have very different aspirations than Gen Z's, for instance.

Right.

So if Gen Z's one to have their needs, wants and preferences heard by elected officials, they need to show up and signal, hey, I'm a play and you better take me, as a serious candidate.

I think that's right.

Yeah.

And getting people who otherwise aren't inclined to participate, to participate is really a challenge.

It's very expensive, and it requires multiple touches.

Like you've seen our data indicate basically that in the Harris County region that you need to have between 1 and 3 touches of a particular voter in order for that to actually pay off in voting.

That can be expensive and time consuming.

A lot of campaigns, like we said, also don't focus on people who aren't likely to vote because like, why would you, right?

You need to kind of cut to the quick, make sure you're getting the people who, you know, we're going to vote to come vote and persuade them.

Correct.

And so getting people who otherwise don't vote like isn't a priority, right?

I need the return on investment as a political party or as a candidate.

Right.

If I know that you're going to be turning out 80% likelihood.

Yeah, I'm going to put a dollar on you.

Yeah.

If someone is like 20% is like, well, I don't know because I need that vote.

I need you to.

But that is when national and statewide political parties have to engage with the general electorate.

The 20% that was involved over and over and over and over.

And in the right way, right.

We know, like relational organizing, like you and I are talking, I try to convince you to go vote does work.

But like text messaging, as people, I'm sure, who are listening to this and watching this like, no, it doesn't always work.

People are annoyed by it.

They kind of push it aside, right?

Or kind of swipe and basically tell them to stop.

Those are very unlikely to yield voting.

And so the right technique really matters.

And campaigns have to adapt to reality here in terms of who they're likely to get to turn out.

Because it's not just a uniform thing, like telling someone to go vote isn't always going to get them to go vote.

You have to be able to create that incentive for them and talk to them in the right way with the right message.

And that mobilization can work if you kind of work in that direction.

Oh, absolutely.

And it's just extremely important to do that.

But under that, no.

A PSA announcement.

Yes.

Don't forget to register and win an election.

Comms do not forget to vote.

I'm Jeronimo Cortina.

And I'm Brandon Rottinghaus.

The conversation keeps up next week.

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