On September 30th, NBC29.com posted a video addressing the concern in Charlottesville of a lack of voter turnout for the upcoming election. On Tuesday, November 5th, the General Election for state and local offices will take place. Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Member House of Delegates, Commonwealth's Attorney, Sheriff, Commissioner of Revenue, Treasurer, two Members of City Council, and 3 Members of the School Board will be on the ballot. Clearly, the results of the election will affect many in the Charlottesville community. With the upcoming deadline to register of October 15th quickly approaching, voter registrars are making a last push to encourage eligible voters to register for voter registration forms and for absentees ballots.
Johnson, in his essay, "Voting, Rational Abstention, and Rational Ignorance," addresses this issue of a decline in voter turnout. He states that it was "around the turn of the century [that] the percentage of eligible individuals exercising their franchise began to drop [...] until only about one-half of the eligible population went to the polls during the 1980s" (Johnson 129). He also acknowledges a trend towards making voting easier, less restrictive, and more convenient. This is exactly what we see in this video. The voter registrars are making it much easier for the first time to be able to register for an absentee ballot online at the Virginia Board of Elections website. With the prediction of only a 40% voter turnout rate on November 5th, this push toward more convenient voting may (they hope) incentivize voters. Additionally, this low voter turnout rate may reflect what Johnson calls rational abstention theory - that is, that a rational individual would not vote, finding that the cost of voting will almost always be greater than the benefits obtained from voting, according to Johnson. Ironically, rational abstention theory is one of the most damaging theories to the democratic self-rule on which our country was founded.
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