Despite a growing political lethargy evidenced by low voter turnout and limp TV ratings for public debate, many argue that voters are still engaged in the political process, though disheartened, and candidates are jumping through new and old hoops to capture their interest.

“There’s a spectrum (of voters),” said ABC7 political reporter Mark Matthews. “Some voters are apathetic and some are fired up…if there’s an issue they feel the candidate is responding to (they will go to the polls).”

Voter responsiveness usually depends on a person’s thought process as well as his or her location in the nation, Matthews said. National elections and issues, in particular, tend to drive people to the polls, he said.

Locally, voter responsiveness depends on the election too, said San Francisco mayoral candidate Josh Wolf.

“San Franciscans need a spark to energize them,” Wolf said. “They need a sense of movement and not politicking as usual.”

Wolf said the 2003 race between Matt Gonzalez and Gavin Newsom sparked the political interest of city dwellers, but he said that he and the other candidates have been unable to generate that kind of buzz in the current mayoral race, due mostly to financial constraints.

Wolf said he has focused on shaping policies and uniting candidates to stay afloat, more than trying to rally the vote.

As of October 29, with only a week to go before the election, just under 20,000 of the 145,000 San Francisco absentee ballots sent out by City Hall had been returned, according to Department of Elections executive assistant Giannina Miranda. She added that the turnout was well below usual figures that soon before an election.

Jackson McBrayer, 24, an SF State junior and cinema major said he feels hindered by the current political system too.

“It would be great if we had a third party system,” McBrayer said. “I think people are apathetic, because they saw the last debacle (the last two presidencies)…it was more a selection than an election.”

McBrayer said he resorted to absentee ballot voting, because he said it creates more of a level playing field for voters, and election workers count the vote differently, he added.
“It’s using politics to protest politics,” he said. “They (the absentee ballots) are the tie-breakers.”

Lee Denton, a SF State alumnus, agreed. Absentee ballots are hand counted to avoid machine “screw ups,” she said.

Promoting the Newsom campaign, Denton visited the SF State campus on Saturday, along with a group of campaign workers, to distribute the ballots.

“The best case scenario is that (Newsom will) win the majority through the absentee ballots,” she said. He hopes to avoid a run off, which would happen if he got less than 50 percent of the vote, she added.

Instant runoff voting is an option San Franciscans will have in the upcoming mayoral election, Wolf said. This means that voters can choose a second and third candidate, along with their first choice.

Instant runoff voting is great on a local level, said Wolf, but he said it would take time to determine how effective it is, in terms of getting candidates into office.

Katherine Houston, a San Pablo resident who attended an anti-war rally Saturday in Dolores Park said the idea of runoff voting would motivate her to go to the polls.
“My vote counts more,” she said, “because I am telling them who is more important.”

» E-mail Jackie Tomco @ jtomco@sfsu.edu