NONVOTERS: America's No-Shows.

NONVOTERS: America's No-Shows

by Jack C. Doppelt and Ellen Shearer Sage Publications Inc, $24.95

NONFICTION BOOKS ABOUT politics tend to fall into three categories. There are a few important books that break new ground and provide unique insight. There are many that recycle conventional wisdom or deal with minutia not worth the reader's time. And then there are the books in middle: the useful books that provide new information but don't open any new horizons.

Nonvoters, by Jack Doppelt and Ellen Shearer falls into the last category -- the useful book. It is essentially an elaboration of a 1996 survey of 3,323 age-eligible Americans, 1,001 of them nonvoters. The survey is supplemented by in-depth interviews with 30 of those nonvoters from five different categories. The process is an attempt to define America's no-shows who now make up over half the eligible electorate in presidential elections, nearly two-thirds in congressional balloting.

This book makes three essential points about nonvoters, one centrally and two in passing. Of the latter pair, the first is a simple statement that what unites nonvoters is "their disaffection for and disconnection from the political process" Thus, non-voting, according to the authors, is not, as some have claimed, a product of economic satisfaction.

The second is that there is no procedural quick fix for the system in registration and election law. Solutions like election day registration, mail or Internet voting, or an election day holiday, are not going to make much difference. The authors posit this, in part, because the procedural fixes that have been enacted -- such as driver's license registration -- have not reversed the decline in turnout. While some respondents cited difficulties with registration and voting as reasons for their lack of participation, further probing produced reasons having more to do with attitudes towards the political system.

But the bulk of the book is devoted to showing that there is no stereotypical nonvoter. While most nonvoters are -- as research and common sense suggest -- poorer, younger, and less educated than voters, there are those who are highly educated, wealthy; and older. While the majority of nonvoters may not read newspapers regularly, watch television news, or participate in their community, there are also those who do keep up on the news and participate in their communities.

Doppelt and Shearer divide nonvoters into five groups ranging from the "doers" (better educated, more likely to read newspapers, volunteer in civic activities, and think well of government and today's political institutions), to the "unplugged" (poorer, less educated or involved, but are involved in civic activity), to the "irritables" (older, more educated, but hostile to the political process) to the "don't knows" (completely outside the political system) to the the group the authors feel is the least likely to ever become involved: the "alienateds" (they understand politics but are hostile to it).

This useful book suffers from two problems. The interviews that supplement the poll do not necessarily illustrate the categories in which those interviewed are placed. Some of the "unpluggeds" seem at least as active in their communities as the "doers" and by the time you read all 30 interviews, you emerge both depressed about the state of politics and a little less certain that the authors' categories work.

Perhaps more importantly, Nonvoters reminds this reader of the gifts from Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas In Wales -- "books that told me everything about the wasp, except why" This book does not tell us why nonvoters are different from voters, what has propelled them in ever-increasing numbers to the political sidelines, the societal import of the problem or what, if anything, could be done about it.

But if you are satisfied with the who and the what -- a book about who the nonvoters are and what they, in their various permutations, are thinking -- then Nonvoters is a very helpful guide.

CURTIS GANS is director of the non-partisan, nonprofit Committee for the Study of the American Electorate.