Delaware County struggles with voter turnout - Ball State Daily

Editor's note: Maci Hoskins and Trinity Rea are co-associate editors at Ball Bearings Magazine.

In the most recent Delaware county primary, which took place May 7, 74,508 people were registered to vote.

Fewer than a quarter of those registered voters actually cast a vote.

This 18.3 percent voter turnout or percentage of eligible voters who vote in an election is not abnormal for Muncie and the surrounding Delaware County area. In the 2020 presidential election, Delaware County had a voter turnout of 58 percent, meaning that just over half of registered voters cast their vote.

This percentage is tied for the lowest voter turnout rate out of all 92 counties in Indiana.

For the past 20 years, Indiana’s voter turnout has been lower than the U.S. average, according to the 2023 Indiana Civic Health Engagement report. The report details that from 2016 to 2020, Indiana’s average turnout “increased by 5.7 percent, however, nationally voter turnout soared.”

Indiana State Representative Sue Errington (D-District 34) said Delaware County’s consistent downfall of voter turnout was due to a multitude of reasons, one of which is Indiana’s low civic engagement.

“The entire state is also low on voter registration,” Errington said. “... If you don’t get registered, then you’re not going to have voter turnout.”

Errington has been in office since 2012 and experienced a general decrease, then increase, of voter turnout in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.

Errington said she believes this upcoming presidential election will significantly affect young people, particularly college students. She claimed there’s “a lot at stake” for young individuals.

“I don’t think people realize how much local government affects their lives,” Errington said.

Former mayoral candidate and Development Director for Shafer Leadership Academy Jeff Robinson agreed that educating Muncie residents and youth voters about the importance of local elections is crucial.According to the National Civic League, turnout for local elections is “historically both low and less representative of community demographics." Across the U.S., only 15 to 27 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot in their local election.

During his campaign, Robinson experienced the lack of local voter turnout firsthand, losing the mayoral race by fewer than 500 votes.

“I knocked on about 17,000 doors in Muncie city limits. Most people don't know what's going on … people didn't know what was happening on major projects in the city,” Robinson said. “I think apathy goes a long way, and I think that's national. I don't think that's just a Muncie problem, but people are just sick of politics, and people are sick of voting and sick of elections.”

Robinson said a huge contributor to low voter turnout is the youth population and their thoughts and opinions.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 39 percent of Indiana’s registered voters aged 18 to 24 voted in the 2020 presidential election.

According to Ball State University Center for Economics, there has been “a significant decline in student voting rates from 2018 to 2022, with an 11 percent drop overall.”

Robinson said this has to change. While he had ideas for on-campus voting polls and registration booths and ran on such during his campaign, he said “people on the opposite side of the aisle” blocked the initiatives.

Robinson said ensuring Ball State students can vote on campus would benefit not only Muncie community members but student's quality of life on and off campus as well.

“Ball State students could have a tremendous amount of power in this community if you know you don't have to go back home to vote,” Robinson said. “You can register right here, and you can choose to vote right here … Ball State students can help with [voting to fix] the roads [and] sidewalks.”

Candidate for the Indiana House of Representatives District 34 Susan Dillon (R) said Ball State voters have been a focus for her party as well.

“I know that our county Republican Party is attempting to look into that and see what kind of support is needed in the Ball State area to help support, specifically the Republican voters that are on campus,” she said.

Dillon acknowledged while students can play a big role, another key part of increasing voter turnout is ensuring voters know their candidates.

“If a candidate has not earned my vote, and I don't know who they are, what they stand for, what their plan is for the position that they're going into, quite frankly, I don't want to vote for them. I can appreciate people not wanting to show up and vote when they don't even know who the candidates are,” she said.

According to the working paper Measuring Voters’ Knowledge of Political News published by Andrea Prat at Columbia University, half of U.S. residents when confronted with a real and fake news story were unable to identify the true story.

Dillion said enacting her parties suggested measures and encouraging voter education will not immediately fix low voter turnout but could begin to turn it around for the county and the state.

Errington agreed and believes the importance of educating voters on the significance of their vote and on who their candidates are is key.

Robinson said that while all of these ideas can help, low voter turnout might be more difficult to permanently fix.

“I think those things would certainly help, but I mean, how do you fix apathy? … You know, I[‘ve] had people say, ‘Oh, my vote doesn't matter.’ Well, it does … It's tough to fix that,” Robinson said.

Contact Maci Hoskins via email at [email protected] or Trinity Rea via email at [email protected].

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