NONVOTERS: America's No-Shows.

• Author: Gans, Curtis
• Position: Review

NONVOTERS: America's No-Shows

by Jack C. Doppelt and Ellen Shearer Sage Publications Inc, $24.95

NONFICTION BOOKS ABOUT politics tend to fall into three categories. There are a few important books that break new ground and provide unique insight. There are many that recycle conventional wisdom or deal with minutia not worth the reader's time. And then there are the books in middle: the useful books that provide new information but don't open any new horizons.

Nonvoters, by Jack Doppelt and Ellen Shearer falls into the last category -- the useful book. It is essentially an elaboration of a 1996 survey of 3,323 age-eligible Americans, 1,001 of them nonvoters. The survey is supplemented by in-depth interviews with 30 of those nonvoters from five different categories. The process is an attempt to define America's no-shows who now make up over half the eligible electorate in presidential elections, nearly two-thirds in congressional balloting.

This book makes three essential points about nonvoters, one centrally and two in passing. Of the latter pair, the first is a simple statement that what unites nonvoters is "their disaffection for and disconnection from the political process" Thus, non-voting, according to the authors, is not, as some have claimed, a product of economic satisfaction.

The second is that there is no procedural quick fix for the system in registration and election law. Solutions like election day registration, mail or Internet voting, or an election day holiday, are not going to make much difference. The authors posit this, in part, because the procedural fixes that have been enacted -- such as driver's license registration -- have not reversed the decline in turnout. While some respondents cited difficulties with registration and voting as reasons for their lack of participation, further probing produced reasons having more to do with attitudes towards the political system.

But the bulk of the book is devoted to showing that there is no stereotypical nonvoter. While most nonvoters are -- as research and common sense suggest -- poorer, younger, and less educated than voters, there are those who are highly educated, wealthy; and older. While the majority of nonvoters may not read newspapers regularly...