There is something that Miriam did not mention and it may be because she
simply did not observe it, but I have observed this very many times.
That is when someone says that they do not plan to vote or that they are
uninterested in voting they usually say something derogatory about the
choices they have been given or else when asked why they do not vote
they then say it. I will have to admit that I have encountered a good
many people who simply are completely uninterested in politics without
offering a reason, but they seem to be in the minority. Most of them
show that depiction of the nonvoting population as apathetic is wrong.
They care, but they are entirely turned off by the kinds of candidates
they get, or at least by the kind of candidates they are aware of.
___
Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
On 8/18/2020 6:46 PM, Erica R wrote:
Thank you for your reply, Miriam. I agree that it seems like many young people and people of color do not see any purpose to voting because they are not included in the process and therefore don't see it as impacting their lives. I also have anecdotally experienced the phenomenon of many people previously uninterested in politics wanting to vote for Bernie Sanders because they felt included in his campaign and platform. I should add for context that Wisconsin also has a law requiring photo ID to vote, which is estimated to have disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters in the state, disproportionately minorities, elderly people of color, and young people.
On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 5:21 PM Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
This article reminds me of a brief discussion I had with my home
health aide this morning. My knowledge of poor and working class
black and brown people, for the past few years, is first hand, and
comes from what these aides say to me. They have little education.
I had two, briefly, who were African American and since I've been
living here, two who emigrated from Jamaica. This one had been
attracted by what she heard Bernie Sanders say many many months
ago when I was listening to Democracy Now and they played a clip
of one of his speeches. I don't think she'd ever heard him before.
By the way, she's 25, and a high school graduate. This morning
again, I was listening to Democracy Now and she said in a sort of
startled voice, "Oh, I didn't realize that the elections are
soon." I asked how she could have avoided hearing all the election
talk. She said that she isn't interested in politics. She isn't.
She's interested in gossiping with other family members and
friends on her I phone. Along with the 4 hours, five mornings a
week that she works for me, she's a child care worker at a
Catholic agency that cares for troubled kids and kids who've been
removed from their homes for one reason or another. She has her
own three year old child who lives back in Jamaica with her
mother, and a boyfriend with kids with whom she lives here. Her
friend, who is much brighter and more caring, worked for me
previously, but she joined the army. The point is that all of
these people whom the Left sees as potential voters, are socially
and emotionally detached from this society. They're here because
they want to better their lives but they don't feel included, nor
do they especially want to be. Back in 2016, I had a very young,
very bright, extremely marginal African American aide briefly: 20
years old, unmarried with a 2 year old. She planned to vote for
Bernie Sanders. Then there was an African American woman in her
30's who was nice, but less intelligent and was not interested in
voting. If you want to have a Democracy with an active engaged
citizenry, then you need to provide for the people, help them feel
that they are important, and provide education. You need to be
reaching out to people continuously on a personal basis. It
doesn't happen in a mass society where everything is impersonal
and everyone communicates by smart phone.
Miriam
*From:* blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> *On Behalf Of *Erica R
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 18, 2020 5:50 PM
*To:* blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [blind-democracy] Wisconsin State Senate Race
We had an interesting primary election for our state senate
representative here in Madison, Wisconsin last week. It was a
7-way split with nobody taking the majority. The winner was a
democrat, and the strongest competitor was a young progressive
from a black, Muslim, immigrant family. Turnout was two times as
high as it was for the last state senate primary election at 38%.
The progressive candidate was endorsed by Ilhan Omar, Democratic
Socialists of America national and local chapters, The People for
Bernie, and many more organizations. Unfortunately she received
almost no coverage in the mainstream Wisconsin press. Madison is
heralded as a liberal paradise, but is home to the worst
disparities in educational outcomes and incarceration between
black and white residents. A lot of focus has been paid in recent
years to awareness for this issue with little progress or
substantive measures taken. Despite Madison's outward
pro-diversity image, the progressive candidate was lambasted for
her vocal and unapologetic support of Black Lives Matter. She was
present at and spoke at some protests.
A local independent arts and culture news outlet, Tone Madison,
summed up the race and turnout. There is some reference in the
text to images of maps that show the turnout in different
neighborhoods, but the results shown in the images are explained
in the text. Also note the introduction says that the primary
winner will be the next state senator, she will be unopposed in
the general. Full text below and here's a link:
https://www.tonemadison.com/articles/mapping-turnout-and-power-in-madisons-big-state-senate-primary
Mapping turnout and power in Madison's big State Senate primary
Andrew Sernatinger
politics
What the results in the 26th District reveal about Madison's
political geography and the chances for upstart candidates.
The votes from the August 11 primary are in and Madison will have
a new State Senator in the 26th District: Kelda Roys. The
competitive seven-way Democratic primary was basically unheard of
in Madison politics, and had candidates genuinely representing
different interests in the city.
On the one side you had candidates representing segments of the
Democratic establishment, with its interest in modest socially
liberal policies and capital-friendly economics: Kelda Roys, John
Imes, and Amani Latimer Burris. On the other, you had grassroots
“progressive” Madison, represented by Nada Elmikashfi, Brian
Benford, and Aisha Moe. Then there was William Henry Davis III, an
underdog even among underdogs.
For the two “sides” in the election, each candidate represented a
subset of their base: Roys, for example, was able to win the real
estate and technology interests of the Democratic Party, while
Benford could tap into the progressivism of the 1990s that’s been
pushed aside as Madison has tried to lock down a neoliberal
development model for the city, and Elmikashfi appealed more to
the younger crowd of millennials and zoomers, as well as an
impressive coalition of local community groups, nonprofits,
unions, and environmentalists. (I am a member of Madison's
Democratic Socialists of America chapter, which endorsed Elmikashfi.)
With so much going on in the race, the voting data can tell us a
great deal about the ongoing showdown between establishment
Democrats and leftist upstarts. Despite COVID-19, it was the
highest turnout for the 26th District in at least 20 years. Just
shy of 50,000 voters participated—more than double the number of
ballots cast in 2016, when long-serving State Senator Fred Risser
ran unopposed. This year, Roys took the lead with 19,789 votes
(40.2%), followed by Elmikashfi (26.8%), then Benford (9.5%),
Latimer Burris (8.9%), Moe (7.4%), Imes (6.2%), and lastly Davis
(0.8%).
Roys took a plurality, but not a majority—60 percent of the votes
cast in the race were for someone other than the winner.
The race came down to Roys and Elmikashfi, who pulled ahead of the
rest of the pack as the only candidates with double-digit support.
Roys and Elmikashfi were the only two candidates to win wards in
the district: Roys 55 to Elmikashfi’s 24.
Is this a vindication of establishment liberalism in Madison? If
we pick apart the numbers beyond the overall percentages, it
reveals a much more nuanced picture of Madison's political geography.
The above ward map shows the level of support for either Roys or
Elmikashfi (dark blue is strong Roys, dark orange is strong
Elmikashfi). The first thing you’d see is a typical east-west
divide, but east-west doesn’t tell us anything about the people
who voted other than where they live.
Pair that instead with a map of income in the district, and you
see something much more interesting: the lower income wards tended
to go to Elmikashfi, and the higher income ones went for Roys. But
there are more poor people than wealthy people, so shouldn’t that
have carried Elmikashfi? Sure, if everyone voted, but they don’t:
the less money you make, the less likely you are to vote.
If we look at how many ballots were cast by ward, we’ll see
something else interesting: The poorest wards and the wards with
the most Black and brown residents had the lowest turnout in the
city. What’s more, the wards covering and adjacent to the
UW-Madison campus had absolutely miserable turnout: some as low as
48 votes total cast. Whether that’s from COVID-19 keeping students
from sticking around or the fact that the primary happened right
before move-in week, it had the effect of suppressing the student
vote. The highest turnout was along the Isthmus (downtown and the
near-east side) and the west side closer to Middleton.
That should give us pause when thinking about the results. Even
with double the turnout, who turned out played out according to
your class and race. This isn’t to say only rich people voted, but
the turnout doesn’t reflect the city—it over-represents white
people and people with more money. Madison’s no different than the
rest of the country in this respect.
For those who voted, why did they pick one candidate over another?
We don’t have any polling information to draw from. We could
speculate about how the Black Lives Matter movement, the
Presidential election, or attitudes to the candidates’ policies
influenced the outcome, but actually the strongest determinant of
the outcomes was how much money each candidate raised.
There’s a 94% correlation between the money a candidate raised (as
a percent of total funds raised) to the percent of votes won.
Basically, the more money you raised, the more votes you got.
If we sort the candidates by the two sides (establishment/centrist
vs. grassroots/progressive), you notice something else. Grassroots
candidates outperformed compared to the establishment candidates:
they won a share of votes above their portion of the funds raised.
The establishment candidates (Roys, Latimer Burris, Imes) all got
a lower return for their money. So grassroots campaigns are more
effective, dollar for dollar, but that doesn’t matter if you’re
running against someone with a shitload of money to burn. Roys
actually had among the worst ratios of money raised-to-votes won,
but she had so much money that she still won out over the other
candidates.
Why should this matter? We like to think that money isn’t
everything, and it is not the only thing; Brian Benford performed
exceptionally well considering his shoe-string budget. But in
modern US politics without publicly funded elections, you gotta
pay to play. Money buys exposure and the appearance of a
professionalism that many voters look for to signal who is a
legitimate candidate and who isn’t.
Given the spread, one might ask if the election was “spoiled” by
having too many candidates. Would Elmikashfi have won if this race
was just her and Roys? Sadly, no. Assuming the two-sides dynamic
holds up, it would have been 56-44 for Roys—a much better spread
for Elmikashfi, but there’s no silver medal for second place. This
is comparable to the April Presidential Primary in Dane County,
where Bernie Sanders took 40% to Joe Biden’s 55%. Both Sanders and
local grassroots candidates have the same problem: even if your
perspectives are widely popular, it's extremely difficult to
activate the new voters you’d need to win. Still, this is a
testament to grassroots organizing that they could provide a real
alternative to business-as-usual politics.
