How New Orleans can fix its low voter turnout
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Over the last 20 years, New Orleanians have grown to feel a stronger connection to the city, while distancing themselves from its politics, according to a new report.
Why it matters: That sets up an interesting framework as the city is poised to elect new leadership this fall.
The big picture: The report, authored by Dillard University urban studies and public policy professor Robert Collins, is part of a collection of papers from the Data Center and the Brookings Institution examining how the metro has changed since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
- To be a resilient community, Data Center chief demographer Allison Plyer says, New Orleans needs a diverse economy, access to wealth, wellness and social cohesion.
What she's saying: "Social cohesion is critically important for coming together around community problem-solving after a disaster," Plyer said during a press briefing on the reports.
Zoom in: Thrust into navigating the local, state and federal spotlight while rebuilding a city, Hurricane Katrina catalyzed a burst of civic engagement for New Orleanians, Collins argues.
By the numbers: When New Orleans went to the polls for an April 2006 mayoral primary — despite all the post-Katrina challenges standing in their way to do so — voter turnout was 37.5%. It increased to 39.9% for the general election that followed in May.
- "Many residents believed that the new interest in civic life ... would spill over into politics. And for one election, it did," Collins writes. "But this heightened interest did not last. ... The 2006 mayor's election turned out to be a 20-year highwater mark."
- Voter participation has declined since, even while social cohesion —engagement with things like social clubs, nonprofits, mutual aid groups and other grassroots organizations — deepened.
The intrigue: Collins says the drop in voter participation is likely the result of a broken feedback loop.
- Put simply, people do things when they get rewarded, and they stop doing them if they don't.
- It becomes easy to think, "I voted [but] my house still floods when we have a minor hurricane, and I still get overcharged by Sewerage and Water, and my electricity still goes out sometimes on a summer afternoon even when there's no weather, and I still can't get the services I need with garbage pickup," he says.
The bottom line: So, how do we fix it?
- We need "a new generation of political leaders that actually promise and deliver," Collins says. "When you promise and deliver, it resets the feedback loop."