The race. Those are three regions to Pay Attention to on election night. Host jamie is a political reporter joining us f washing. Host joining us from miami is sam gill, the chief Program Officer and president for the Knight Foundation. A new study on who are the nonvoters. What did you learn . Sam thanks for having me. I am looking forward to the chance to talk to your audience. We commissioned the study because, if you actually count the people who did not vote in the last president ial election that would be the top vote getter, not vote is the top vote getter. We wanted to understand, if so many people are not voting who are they . Why are so many people disconnecting from this basic civic act. We found a few things that were important and some of them surprised me. The first thing we found was that the nonvoters really flitter rates our caricature of those who are not engaged. They represent all walks of life in this country, people from every background and people of diverse interests and ideological ideas. It is not just one kind of person. There are things that unify nonvoters. These are folks that have less faith in the system. They have less confidence in the outcome of elections. They are more likely to think the system has been rigged. Matter,ion really does we take it as an article of faith in this country that having an informed electorate and informed citizenry is important. Our Research Found that is true. People who do not vote are less likely to actively seek out news. But intomore likely to news, which is increasingly common in the social news area. They are less likely to have talked about their views growing up. We found that nonvoters are ideologically diverse. There are folks who support President Trump, there are folks who support democratic candidates, and there are moderates. Excitementot of about an emerging generation that seems to be concerned and passionate about so many crucial issues, the youngest part of our electorate, the 18 to 24 show signs of being more disconnected from politics and even less interested. Host i do not overgeneralize, ifbased on your research you are a High School Graduate who makes less than 50,000 a year you are less likely to vote, correct . Exactly sam that is right. In many ways voters look like nonvoters. Those features are important. Nonvoters tend to earn less in terms of household income, nonvoters tend to also not have a College Degree. Quite a few people with a College Degree do not vote. You can find nonvoters from all walks of life. Host what about those who simply just do not like the candidates . Sam that is a lot of nonvoters. When you ask people why they do not vote they tend to give a lot of reasons. There is not one overarching reason. The one is they say they do not like the candidates. Folks whoue of those are close to voting, particularly those who are moderate and progressive and tend to follow the news and be more plugged in. They are more likely to say they do not like the candidates running. Host going back to the chart which is available on your website, those who have an unfavorable opinion of the president , 40 are nonvoters. If you dont like the candidate, or trump, why not vote . That is a good question. We found there are a lot of reasons. Some people might not like the president but do they feel they have the information to vote. Are there other decisions i have to make on the ballot . I am not sure i have the information to do that. We found that nonvoters are messed less likely to think that the Election Results are accurate, that they represent the will of the people. A nonvoter might say that they dont run like the president but will it matter if they go vote. Will it make a difference in the final tally . Nonvoters have a more attenuated sense of the impact of politics on their lives. They are less likely to think decisions made in washington will impact them. They are more likely to let others make choices for them on their behalf in washington. When asked if they like the president they may say they do not where they like another candidate, but they have a weaker sense they will be able to make a difference in the system. That is something that should concern us, that people do have opinions about what is right and wrong. Their voiceure actually matters. This is something that no matter what party you are from should concern us about the state of our democracy. And our guest is sam gill he is joining us from miami. If you are planning to vote in this election give us a call at 202 7488000. If you are planning to skip voting, if you are a nonvoters 202 7488001. If you are not sure, 202 7488002. We have a phone line for all three categories. Tell us about the Knight Foundation and how you are funded. Is the Knight Foundation built on the wealth of a couple that ran the knight Newspaper Company for much of the 20th century, it was one of the largest Newspaper Companies in the country. It operated newspapers in places like miami, charlotte, akron, the breadth of the country. The knight Newspaper Company does not exist anymore but the wealth that the Knight Brothers accrued through the company now lives on in the foundation. As an independent endowment our mission is to support stronger democracy through more informed and engaged communities. Areas ofn the journalism, arts, and the community. Host how many nonvoters are there in the United States . Sam about 100 million nonvoters. In the last election it was just under 100 million. It tends to since the 60s vacillate around 40 to 50 of the electorate. Host can you underscore that point . That is a huge number. Sam if you look at the last thetion, donald trump won electoral college, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Between the two of them you are looking at 25 to 27 of the eligible electorate. 40 of the eligible electorate chose not to vote. To 100 vote, close million people, was a more popular choice for americans who were eligible to vote than either candidate who was running. To the study, one question you asked is what do you believe is the most important issue facing the u. S. Today. Immigration,s number two was health care followed by jobs and the economy. If you think these issues are important why not cast your ballot for the candidate you think is best suited to deal with those issues . Sam the study helped us understand a couple of elements. It is not like the voters care about the issues you mentioned are issues people care about. They matter deeply to our lives and how our families are doing and what the future of this company will look like. Nonvoters are prioritizing the same issues. They are not asking the electoral system to prioritize different issues. We did find that nonvoters do the wayss match on that parties divide these issues. Tovoters are more likely favor the construction of a wall along the southern border. Toy are somewhat less likely favor paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in this country. They are less likely to think that what we need to do is scrap the Affordable Care act and replace it. That would be a clear example of where nonvoters are pretty constant with the Current Republican Party and donald trump. There are other parties views that do not reflect that. This might be a question we need to ask ourselves. Is our current way of sorting ideologically exactly representative of some of the ways that most americans see these choices . I think the other thing we found is that nonvoters are not sure that their vote makes a difference. They are not sure that it is going to be counted and they are generally not sure that their voice and ideas are important for the decisions made in this country. Even if they feel passionately about these issues, if they are not sure the system is going to work for them, amidst Everything Else we have to do and the pressure it takes to go out and vote, this may not be the highest priority. Gill, ar guest is sam graduate of the university of chicago and study at oxford in england, he is a Rhodes Scholar and the chief Program Officer of the Knight Foundation. Joe is joining us from buffalo, new york. Are you planning to vote . Caller yes i am. Host know ahead. Go ahead. Caller i am an intellectual. I do enjoy listening to intellectuals. I enjoy listening to their opinion on cspan and other shows. How do intellectuals feel about this guy, trump . Whenever he opens his mouth . Come on , sam, tell me the truth . Sam thanks for planning to vote and thanks for calling in. Foundation does not have an opinion on who ought to be the next president in this country. It does not have an opinion on a on who should have been the president. We do really care that people are informed and that we have an informed country. Some of that depends on elected officials. Whether they can communicate with the public about what they care about and what is important to them. A lot depends on the other ways we find information. One of the great things about cspan is that it not only gives us a chance to hear from the president and other elected officials, but it gives us a chance to hear from journalists and each other. We think that what is as important to the future of our democracy is that people feel that they are able to find news that they trust about where they live and the country and they are able to access that news. No matter what unelected officials says we feel we have facts we can use to make decisions about what we care about. Host we will go to charlie and windemere, florida. You are planning not to vote . Caller i am planning not to vote if what comes to pass happens. I am a Bernie Sanders supporter and what i feel will happen with the Democratic Party when Bernie Sanders comes out with the most amount of delegates. As you know they go to the second ballot, and in the second ballot you have a rigged system really where you have the , whiched superdelegates the establishment Democratic Party made up. If they give it to, who i feel they would give it to, when everybody runs out of money Michael Bloomberg who is really a republican, i dont think i will vote. If i have to vote for the green party i will vote for the green party. Can i ask your guest two questions that relate to his study . Number one, did he include in that study people who turned 18 this year and now are eligible to vote . I would love to know that. Answersas people gave to why they did not vote, how can you attribute laziness of people who just did not vote because they did not want to be bothered . The third question, does he know how many countries i know australia is one, but there are a lot of industrialized countries where it is required to vote or you pay a fine. Those are three things i would love to find out about. If he can provide me with any of that that will be great. Sam thanks for calling in. Happy to answer those questions. We did include 18 to 24yearolds. For that part of the study we did not require them to have registered to vote or to vote. The nonvoting part of the study are those who consistently have not voted over the last six national elections. We did have some folks in the sample who probably turned 18 this year. We wanted to understand on emerging generation, not focus on who votes or does not vote. Your second question is about laziness. Thats not a word i want to use. Who sure there are people sometime prioritize things other than voting. I have gone to vote with a threeyearold and a oneyearold, when you are there you wish you werent. I am glad i turned out to make sure my voice was heard. We did find that single mothers are a little bit less likely to vote. These are people with a lot to do in a day and a lot on their mind. I am not sure laziness is the right word. If you dont think you have the information you need which tends to typify nonvoters, if you are not sure your voice matters, if you are earning less it might be that other things take priority when boating day comes. You asked about something some countries do to help with this. Australia requires voting. For zillow is a country that requires you vote. From brazil and has to vote. Brazil tries to make it easier. It is on a weekend. You dont have to take time away from work. There are things countries do to encourage people to come to the polls. I am a member of the commission of the American Academy of arts and sciences that is exploring these issues. This issue has been discussed, we have a commission on the question of citizenship. Should we make voting easier, should we have a National Holiday . In addition to discussing those ideas we should be concerned about what you said, why you might not turn out. You are passionate about politics. About if thisd system of selecting a nominee is rigged. Even if we require voting in elections, they should worry us. If we do not believe in democracy than the systems may not be enough to keep our democracy strong. Next in washington, d. C. We have marked. You are unsure if you are we have mark. You are unsure if you are going to vote . Caller yes. Unsure this year. Host why . Initially i was interested in the array of democratic candidates. Then the second and third base they started whittling it down boring, scripted. Ones that appeared intelligent also interesting. He gathered comes to mind. They did this based on polls. We know from 2016, those polls are not accurate. Unsure about voting. Lets go to kelly and hear another voice of someone who is planning to vote. Caller i am definitely a democrat. I am very active in politics. Sister havend my all worked for the dnc to try to get people interested to vote. One of the problems of why young arele are nonvoting is they educated about. That is a problem in the schools. I knew nothing about politics. I did not think my vote mattered and i didnt understand what was going on for how it affected me. Voted hen, he started getting into voting because of the marijuana issue. Them witho tempt something that might be interesting to them then pull them in. The kids are 18 when they are in high school. I did not know anything, there was no Political Science in my private school. They did not concentrate on that whatsoever. Maybe if they understood how it affects their lives they might get out there. As far as one thing i think that should be out there as far as people that are nonvoting, because they are not sure, they do not like this one or that one. If they are not voting they are voting for trump. Especially this year, the election is being manipulated by russia. Everybody knows that. Host sam, what are you hearing from these colors . One in washington and one in massachusetts. What we are hearing are some issues that tie nonvoters together. Certainly issues that tie a Younger Generation together. When we ask this emerging part of the electorate, 18 to 24yearolds about what they think about voting in the election they are less interested in politics. They are less likely to think their voice makes a difference. Some of what we are hearing from these callers speaks to why. Young people are less exposed to politics at home than previous generations. If they are not exposed in school either they may not have a strong sense of why this matters, why do think about politics and why they can engage with how the system works. There are a lot of good ideas about how to improve things like Civics Education. In florida a Civics Education is required. That is true in some states and other states are exploring ways to do this. Helpve invested efforts to schools either directly or through libraries to teach Media Literacy and Information Literacy so young people can navigate the information environment more effectively. There are new methods for teachings civics that are being developed. Ways to make it more about the actions we take as individuals to debate critical issues. That is critical for Younger Generations. They are also less likely to see the system as reflecting them. You heard this from both of these callers. The woman from massachusetts, her son is more interested in the marijuana issue. Young people are much more energized on issues of climate, much more energized about issues of gun violence and gun policy in this country. Many young people are excited about the different kind of candidate, one who they may no longer see on the debate stage. Andrew yang in the democratic primary was able to build a lot of momentum around people who were looking for a different voice, a different set of issues. You are arguably seeing the same thing with senator sanders. He is tapping into people who are not excited about what some of the other candidates tended to represent. That they critical is find ways to help people see the system is legitimate. It is also the responsibility of the system itself, of the way the campaigns are run, the candidates, the way that the media reports on elections to begin to speak to some of those broader issues. Ahead ofng was pulling the coverage he was getting in the media. This is an example where the media focus on the horse race on who is often who is down may actually contribute in some cases to people saying, heck with it. This debate does not reflect what excites me or interests me about the future of our country. Edward from new jersey. You are unsure if you are going to vote . Caller bernie or bust. Where there any studies done about breaking up the twoparty system, excitement for multiple parties . We have these parties that have been arguing about abortion and gay rights for hundreds of years while the world is on fire. That is why people are not excited. It is not working. I would like to know if there is any idea about possibly breaking up this twoparty monopoly. Host edward, thank you for the call. Did not ask people about whether they would like to see a different party. We would ask people nationally and in swing states about who they might vote for. Folks werety of interested in reelecting President Trump or a generic democratic candidate. There was a meaningful number of ofple who preferred neither those candidates or just were not sure. There are people who are not voting that are the kind of folks who would consider Something Like a third party, that is not something we directly asked. I think that you see both among those who vote and those who are not voting some real challenges to the ways that the Current Party system is dividing lines. Most people in the republican establishment would say donald trump was an unconventional candidate in the primary. A lot of folks in the democratic establishment, the previous guest on the show would talk about Bernie Sanders as an unconventional candidate within the democratic primary. Donald trump is the president and Bernie Sanders is the front runner in the democratic primary. Among those who are voting you are seeing them start to reach for something that looks like a different way of imagining what the different parties are focused on. Among nonvoters you saw views that are not really well youained in any one party saw nonvoters looking more like in any one party. He saw nonvoters looking more like republicans when it comes to a wall and a path to citizenship but looking more like democrats when it comes to medicare for all. Whether that materializes as a thirdparty i am not sure. It has been a popular Washington Field envelope prediction for 20 or 25 years. I think most political observers would say we are seeing change today in what the party stand for and we are likely to see more. Host if people want to get the study how can they do so . Sam they can go to our website. Kf. Org. That is the Knight Foundation website. They can also go to the 100million. Org. They can find the study and hear the voices of people who do not vote in this country and the people of the voices of people who are trying to talk to those who do not vote. From all ideologies and background and all points of view. They have a chance to find out what kind of nonvoter you are to see other people making the same choices you are. We would encourage people, whether you have not missed an election, one of your earlier callers was 93 and had not missed on election, or you have missed every election by design, we would encourage you to check out these resources. Voice about why you do or do not vote. Host sam gill, senior vp of the kn announcer washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up monday morning, a discussion of the week ahead in washington and campaign 2020, with Reuters White House correspondent jeff mason, and National Political reporter al lever. Then we will talk about the use of stop and frisk. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern on monday morning. Join the discussion. Announcer during this election season, the candidates beyond the talking points are only revealed over time. But since you cannot be everywhere, theres cspan. Our campaign 2020 programming differs from all over there all other political coverage for one simple reason. It is cspan. We brought you your unfiltered view of government every day since 1979. And this year we are bringing you and unfiltered view this november. In other words, your future. So this election season, go deep, direct. See the biggest picture for yourself. And make up your own mind. Would cspans campaign 2020, brought to you as a Public Service by your television provider. Announcer right now, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are on their way to india for their First Official visit to the country. On monday they visited mahatma gandhis place for living. Then indias promised her joints the president for a rally being held at the Worlds Largest cricket stadium. Later the president and first lady visit the taj mahal. On tuesday a formal look him ceremony will be held at the president ial palace in new delhi, followed by a wreath laying the gandhi memorial. And President Trump holds a press conference with