Tracking the Voters — Before and After the Election

Journalists are finally beginning to focus on the people who will decide this election — the voters.

The candidates and their political operatives always start with the demographics of the voters. Journalists start with the candidates, shift to the contest and then, in October, look at the demographics of the voters.

Who votes is critical this year, particularly if the political analysts who predict a close election turn out to be right. Secondly, there has been a huge increase in the number of new voters registered across the country, especially among people 18 to 24 and, to some extent, members of racial or ethnic minorities.

When I covered local campaigns as a reporter, candidates’ staffs would never let me near the heart of the campaign — the get-out-the-vote operation, or GOTV. In fact, I was once thrown out of a GOTV meeting. Now that I’m out of the newsroom, I work as a volunteer to help get out the vote, and it’s fascinating.

Here are stories reporters can do on voters, before and after an election.

Before the election:

Who usually votes?

Nationally, the most common voter is female, white, married and educated.

Gender: A higher percentage of women than men vote in presidential and congressional elections, according to the U.S. Census. (Table B.)

Age: Nearly three-quarters of people 55 and older vote.

Although voters 18  to 24 years old have the lowest voting rates, that percentage has steadily increased since 2000. The trend could be significant, because Barack Obama and Democrats have made registering young people a major campaign goal.

"Obama has the ability to change the electorate," Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said during an August political seminar at George Washington University. "Simulating modest gains in youth turnout takes the ballot to a 2-point advantage for Obama. Changing the face of the electorate is Obama’s ace in the hole."

Race/ethnicity: Non-Hispanic whites comprised 79 percent of the 126 million people who voted  in the 2004 presidential election. Even in states where whites are a minority of the population they are a majority of the voters. In California, non-Hispanic whites are just a bit over 40 percent of the population, but in 2006 they made up more than 50 percent of the voting population.

Latinos are more than one-third of the California population but one-fifth of the state’s voters.

Why? Someone must be 18 years old and a U.S. citizen to vote. Generally, a third of Latinos are younger than 18, and another a third are not citizens.

Nationally, 6 percent of the voters in the 2004 presidential election were Latinos and 11 percent were African Americans.

Education and income: The more education and money voters have, the more apt they are to vote. "The voting rate of citizens who had a bachelor’s degree (78 percent) was about twice as high as that of citizens who had not completed high school (40 percent)," according to the Census Bureau report on who voted in the 2004 presidential election.

Where are the new voters?

Check to see not only the number of new voters but also where they live, now that voter registration has closed in most states.

Where are the highest-voting precincts in the city or state?

Find them and then call the Democratic and Republican precinct captains in both places. They know exactly how their folks are feeling and can provide a good read on turnout.

David Broder of the Washington Post, the dean of American political reporters, keeps a list of precinct captains in bellwether precincts. He calls them.

How do candidates use these high-turnout precincts?

When I was a young reporter covering the mayor’s race in Washington, D.C., I finally figured out how candidates organized their schedule of appearances. In the summer and early fall they visited sections of the city (precincts) that had low-to-moderate turnout. But starting in October they went to the precincts with the highest turnout. In Washington, that meant the northern tier of the city.

After the election:

Did the new voters vote?

What was the difference between numbers of registered voters and those who actually voted?  If Democrats had the edge in registration, did the party’s candidate win? Or, if Republicans had the advantage, did the that party's candidate prevail?

Impact of new voters on future elections?

If the new voters who are younger or minorities did vote, then elected officials are going to take notice. These voters would become a new constituency to be serviced and wooed by future office-seekers.

Has the torch been passed to the next generation of voters, or not?

Bobbi Bowman, a longtime newspaper reporter and editor, is diversity director for the American Society of Newspaper Editors.