Very few people are expected to turn up to exercise their citizen’s right to cast a vote in the August local election, bookended as it is by the presidential primary and November general election. Although key decisions will be made about Knox County Commission and school board seats, there are no high-profile contested state races, and many voters are likely to be preoccupied with the email scandals and xenophobic zingers playing out on the national stage.

“This is the election that very few people participate in,” says Cliff Rodgers, Knox County administrator of elections. He says his staff is planning for a turnout of 40,000—and hoping for 30,000.

The Knox County general election during the last presidential election year, 2012, saw abysmal turnout: Just 24,476 voters, or 9 percent of those registered—less than half the number that turned out in Shelby (22.7 percent) and Hamilton (23.4 percent) counties. But Chris Acuff, a doctoral student in political science at the University of Tennessee, says the difference among cities often has to do with which have competitive races on the ballot.

In general, Knox County has no worse voter turnout than other major metropolitan counties. In the March primary election, Knox and Hamilton counties both had 42 percent turnout, better than Shelby County (which had 28 percent) and Davidson (with 32 percent). And local turnout in the last presidential election was 64.6 percent, within a few percentage points of every other major metropolitan county in Tennessee.

Local election-watchers including Rynn Dupes, President of League of Women Voters in Knox County, say the causes of low voter turnout fall into two major categories: personal reasons, and obstacles related to the way voter registration and elections are run in Tennessee.

A Crisis of Faith

A big psychological factor is people believing their vote doesn’t make a difference. This sentiment is especially common among the poor and among urban blacks, as well as—in red-state Tennessee—Democrats, says Allan Mark Wilford, a graduate teaching associate at UT who’s researching international elections and comparative forms of government.

Deossie Dingus, executive director of Alliance House Community of Knoxville—a nonprofit that tackles social issues such as improving literacy and health in underserved communities—says poor voters and black voters have often felt local candidates abandoned them and their concerns once the votes were cast. They are more likely to vote in federal elections because historically the federal government has been more likely to protect their rights.

“There’s definitely a learned behavior that has taken place in our (black) community about voting, and it has been passed down from the kitchen table from generation to generation,” Dingus says. Yet, “when you look at older generation, they say, ‘All these barriers put into place to keep us from voting only motivated us to vote.’ The younger generation says, “All these barriers were put in place to keep us from voting. I just won’t vote.’”

The daily pressures of poverty and the high rate of incarceration of blacks are inherent barriers to voting, says Dingus, whose group co-sponsored a candidate forum last week and holds voter registration events at the Alliance House.

Knox County had 225,621 registered voters as of June 23. Given that the voting age population in 2015 (presumably somewhat similar to today) was 355,192, more than a third of adults still aren’t registered at all.

Among those who are, “The typical voter is wealthy, highly educated, and generally a guy,” Wilford says, although women are almost achieving parity. “The thinking on why that is is that if you have a lot of resources you want to protect them.”

Regardless of their income, potential voters have to make time to decide how to cast their vote, where to do it and when. Dupes says friends often tell her they feel overwhelmed by the number of different elections and candidates.

Coral Getino, a Spanish language translator and interpreter who has lived in Knoxville 25 years, says many Spanish-speaking immigrants come from countries where voting happens only every four years, and where politicians are so corrupt that voters lose faith in the entire system.

She says the sheer number of elections as well as lack of access to Spanish-language (or simple English) information about the candidates are stumbling blocks for Latino voters. Although many native Spanish-speakers know enough English to function in their daily lives, political debate involves much more complicated words and concepts.

“Providing information about the candidates in simple language would help not only immigrants, but the larger population,” Getino says.

Knoxville and other East Tennessee cities have more elections per year than some in other states. Many try to roll local elections in with national and state votes to save money, but this also drives up turnout for local races.

The March primary cost $394,174, Rodgers says. In fact, Knox County could have chosen to have four elections this year—the local primary is usually held in May—but the state offered to foot the bill if the county would move up the local elections to coincide with the primary, Rodgers says. The August election will probably run closer to $200,000, while Rodgers estimates a $400,000 price tag for the November vote.

Acuff, who is studying electoral turnout, says Tennessee is among states where separate local elections became the norm as much as a century ago, to shield them from national party politics. The practice continued partly because those who win office under the current system have little incentive to change it, he says. Local elections with lower turnout require less broad campaigning and less expense for candidates, who rely on the people they know through church and social clubs to carry the day when apathy waters down the voting pool.

But Rodgers says, “I don’t see any way around having less than three elections a year,” especially when the ballots are already so long. “I think we have a good system.”

The inconvenience of long lines can also be an issue, which is why early voting has been such a boon, says Rodgers. In the March primary, some West Knox County precincts nevertheless had hours-long waits. Precincts such as Ball Camp are being split to avoid a repeat of the problem, Rodgers says.

Young Voters

Wilford says the biggest key to increasing turnout is getting young adults in the habit of voting. “If you get somebody to vote in the first one or two elections they’re eligible to vote in, they’ll probably vote for rest of their life,” he says.

Ann Strange of the Knox County League of Women Voters says the group is targeting voter registration among students, among other underrepresented groups. Dupes says the league is trying to help start a chapter on the UT campus.

Strange says the requirement that college students present a Tennessee or federal identification is an unnecessary stumbling block, arguing more would vote if they could use a student ID or out-of-state ID rather than having to acquire a special Tennessee ID just for the purpose.

According to the nonpartisan Nonprofit VOTE organization, young people are also more likely to vote if they can register online, which the Tennessee General Assembly approved this spring. Starting next July, Tennessee will join a majority of other states in offering this option.

In Arizona, registration rates increased from 29 percent to 53 percent among voters aged 18 to 24 with the adoption of online registration, according to Nonprofit VOTE’s “America Goes to the Polls 2014” report.

And those of any age who register online are more likely to actually vote than those who do so on paper, the report indicates. To use Arizona as an example again, 94 percent of online registrants voted in 2008 compared to 85 percent of those who registered by paper.

Rules of the Game

Some countries also automatically register citizens to vote when they turn 18, says Wilford, who studies international elections. Oregon has gone to an approach similar to this, making voter registration automatic as part of the application for a driver’s license or state ID. But most states, including Tennessee, require citizens to take the extra step of getting and staying registered.

In fact, in Knox County, if you don’t vote in four consecutive November elections, your registration is stripped and you are removed from the voter rolls. This is to avoid inflation of the rolls, Rodgers says, since a certain number of people die or move each year and—presumably—stop voting locally. (He says some states purge voters from the rolls after they fail to vote in just one November election.)

A small but growing number of states are also allowing voters to register on election day at the same time they vote. According to Nonprofit VOTE, the 13 states that did so in 2014 averaged a 48 percent turnout, 12 percent higher than the average of states that required earlier registration.

The American system of voting at a certain polling place on election day is also rather unusual. Dupes says Rutherford County is experimenting with allowing registered voters to vote either in their precinct or at voting centers where anyone in the county can cast their ballot, just like during early voting.

“I think that would really help,” Dupes says. “I talk to people I know who forgot to look up where their polling place was on election day. If you already feel like your vote isn’t going to make that big of a difference, if you have a couple little roadblocks, it’s less likely you’ll get there.”

Wilford says studies have shown voter turnout increases if people can vote near where they work (as opposed to near where they live, which is our current system).

A barrier for Latino voters may be the lack of any voting information in Spanish, says Strange. (Rodgers says he’s never heard a complaint about it.) Strange and Dupes say the League has applied for a grant to provide this.

Strange says easier access to absentee ballot applications would also help. These can be filled out online or mailed directly to the voter by the elections commission, but cannot be picked up by the League or another nonprofit to deliver to voters. “The reason, I think, the law is like that is there’s no way to know if somebody’s is pre-marking it for a particular primary,” Rodgers says.

Currently, absentee ballots are available for people who won’t be in town for the election, those who are physically unable to vote in person, and anyone over the age of 60. Nonprofit VOTE recommends states allow all voters to sign up for automatic absentee ballots to be mailed to them at every election, something only allowed in Tennessee with a doctor’s note.

Dingus says these structural changes may help, but to really get more black voters to the polls, local leaders need to find creative ways to meet people where they are. That means holding registration drives in schools and community centers—not just churches—in rough neighborhoods and keeping convenient East Knoxville neighborhood precincts open even if turnout is low. For felons who want their voting rights restored, all the relevant officials could come to a neighborhood community center for a day to tackle the process all at once instead of felons having to take multiple bus rides for interviews at different offices.

“Those are the type of things where the city has to say: There are more creative ideas coming from the community, not just the usual people sitting around the table nodding their heads,” he says.

S. Heather Duncan

S. Heather Duncan has won numerous awards for her feature writing and coverage of the environment, government, education, business and local history during her 15-year reporting career. Originally from Western North Carolina, Heather has worked for Radio Free Europe, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London, and several daily newspapers. Heather spent almost a dozen years at The Telegraph in Macon, Ga., where she spent most of her time covering the environment or writing project-investigations that provoked changes such as new laws related to day care and the protection of environmentally-sensitive lands. You can reach Heather at heather@knoxmercury.com