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Published on 11/09/1998 All articles from this issue

Voter turnout not necessarily a good sign

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By David L. Grey

Media Watch

Sixty-two percent. No, more like 55-56 percent. Still a "good" year for voter turnout in California?

Well, if you believed much local news coverage, maybe "yes" before the election and probably "no" after.

The election and follow-ups, thus, renew many questions. Fifty-five or so percent meant the turnout of registered voters in California in a gubernatorial-year election (1982, 1986, 1990, etc.). But final non-registered calculations will bring this percentage down to 44-45. Not a good showing.

Either way Californians look at it, roughly 5.5 in 10 potential (eligible) voters did not vote, or, at best, about 4.5 in 10 registered voters did not.

Was 1998 turnout supposed to be high or the highest in the past 16 years? Yes. Did that happen? No.

Only in 1982 did California near a 70 percent registered-voter turnout. Most recent gubernatorial-year elections have been at 59-60 percent while the state's 1996 presidential election turnout was approximately 65.

So last week's 55 state figure was closer to typical or recent sub-par percentages.

It is hard, however, to argue against an accepted system where "a majority wins."

Thus, the electoral process turned out OK, right?

Well, it depends whether OK or so-so is good enough, and how we believe our local votes made differences in Los Altos Hills and Mountain View races.

And then we find out final Santa Clara County figures for registered voters end up at about 58 percent turnout, slightly above the state's 55.

In retrospect, several more questions must be re-asked. Were we honestly voting informed? Did we blindly vote or because we really wanted to? Were at times our votes more against a candidate rather than for someone? Did we sometimes abstain or "write in" an alternative rather than punch another hole for an unknown?

This election was another expected illustration of horse-race news coverage and preoccupations with public opinion polls and earliest possible projections among our multi-thousands of messages and images - from news stories, advertisements, mailers, phone calls, billboards and posters to our all-important personal beliefs and contacts.

So, one conclusion: There can be no doubt we have survived if not thrived in another exercise in democracy.

One retrospective may well be that the mass media clearly helped most of us but cannot help but leave many of us feeling a bit unsatisfied before, during or after voting.

We can hope we did not rely too much on the news to inform. If there is any lesson, it is to reassess how we consumed and filtered our messengers especially before and in the voting booth or ever more commonly today (estimated at 15 and even up to 20-plus percent) in filling out those ballots called absentee.

David L. Grey, Ph.D, is professor emeritus of journalism at San Jose State University where for 24 years he taught and did research on media law and ethics. He is a Mountain View resident.