Civic act. We found a few things that were important and some of them surprised me. The first thing we found was that the nonvoters really flitter rates our caricature of those who are not engaged. They represent all walks of life in this country, people from every background and people of diverse interests and ideological ideas. It is not just one kind of person. There are things that unify nonvoters. These are folks that have less faith in the system. They have less confidence in the outcome of elections. They are more likely to think the system has been rigged. Matter,ion really does we take it as an article of faith in this country that having an informed electorate and informed citizenry is important. Our Research Found that is true. People who do not vote are less likely to actively seek out news. But intomore likely to news, which is increasingly common in the social news area. They are less likely to have talked about their views growing up. We found that nonvoters are ideologically diverse. There are folks who support President Trump, there are folks who support democratic candidates, and there are moderates. Excitementot of about an emerging generation that seems to be concerned and passionate about so many crucial issues, the youngest part of our electorate, the 18 to 24 show signs of being more disconnected from politics and even less interested. Host i do not overgeneralize, ifbased on your research you are a High School Graduate who makes less than 50,000 a year you are less likely to vote, correct . Exactly sam that is right. In many ways voters look like nonvoters. Those features are important. Nonvoters tend to earn less in terms of household income, nonvoters tend to also not have a College Degree. Quite a few people with a College Degree do not vote. You can find nonvoters from all walks of life. Host what about those who simply just do not like the candidates . Sam that is a lot of nonvoters. When you ask people why they do not vote they tend to give a lot of reasons. There is not one overarching reason. The one is they say they do not like the candidates. Folks whoue of those are close to voting, particularly those who are moderate and progressive and tend to follow the news and be more plugged in. They are more likely to say they do not like the candidates running. Host going back to the chart which is available on your website, those who have an unfavorable opinion of the president , 40 are nonvoters. If you dont like the candidate, or trump, why not vote . That is a good question. We found there are a lot of reasons. Some people might not like the president but do they feel they have the information to vote. Are there other decisions i have to make on the ballot . I am not sure i have the information to do that. We found that nonvoters are messed less likely to think that the Election Results are accurate, that they represent the will of the people. A nonvoter might say that they dont run like the president but will it matter if they go vote. Will it make a difference in the final tally . Nonvoters have a more attenuated sense of the impact of politics on their lives. They are less likely to think decisions made in washington will impact them. They are more likely to let others make choices for them on their behalf in washington. When asked if they like the president they may say they do not where they like another candidate, but they have a weaker sense they will be able to make a difference in the system. That is something that should concern us, that people do have opinions about what is right and wrong. Their voiceure actually matters. This is something that no matter what party you are from should concern us about the state of our democracy. And our guest is sam gill he is joining us from miami. If you are planning to vote in this election give us a call at 202 7488000. If you are planning to skip voting, if you are a nonvoters 202 7488001. If you are not sure, 202 7488002. We have a phone line for all three categories. Tell us about the Knight Foundation and how you are funded. Is the Knight Foundation built on the wealth of a couple that ran the knight Newspaper Company for much of the 20th century, it was one of the largest Newspaper Companies in the country. It operated newspapers in places like miami, charlotte, akron, the breadth of the country. The knight Newspaper Company does not exist anymore but the wealth that the Knight Brothers accrued through the company now lives on in the foundation. As an independent endowment our mission is to support stronger democracy through more informed and engaged communities. Areas ofn the journalism, arts, and the community. Host how many nonvoters are there in the United States . Sam about 100 million nonvoters. In the last election it was just under 100 million. It tends to since the 60s vacillate around 40 to 50 of the electorate. Host can you underscore that point . That is a huge number. Sam if you look at the last thetion, donald trump won electoral college, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Between the two of them you are looking at 25 to 27 of the eligible electorate. 40 of the eligible electorate chose not to vote. To 100 vote, close million people, was a more popular choice for americans who were eligible to vote than either candidate who was running. To the study, one question you asked is what do you believe is the most important issue facing the u. S. Today. Immigration,s number two was health care followed by jobs and the economy. If you think these issues are important why not cast your ballot for the candidate you think is best suited to deal with those issues . Sam the study helped us understand a couple of elements. It is not like the voters care about the issues you mentioned are issues people care about. They matter deeply to our lives and how our families are doing and what the future of this company will look like. Nonvoters are prioritizing the same issues. They are not asking the electoral system to prioritize different issues. We did find that nonvoters do the wayss match on that parties divide these issues. Tovoters are more likely favor the construction of a wall along the southern border. Toy are somewhat less likely favor paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in this country. They are less likely to think that what we need to do is scrap the Affordable Care act and replace it. That would be a clear example of where nonvoters are pretty constant with the Current Republican Party and donald trump. There are other parties views that do not reflect that. This might be a question we need to ask ourselves. Is our current way of sorting ideologically exactly representative of some of the ways that most americans see these choices . I think the other thing we found is that nonvoters are not sure that their vote makes a difference. They are not sure that it is going to be counted and they are generally not sure that their voice and ideas are important for the decisions made in this country. Even if they feel passionately about these issues, if they are not sure the system is going to work for them, amidst Everything Else we have to do and the pressure it takes to go out and vote, this may not be the highest priority. Gill, ar guest is sam graduate of the university of chicago and study at oxford in england, he is a Rhodes Scholar and the chief Program Officer of the Knight Foundation. Joe is joining us fr and something that might be interested to them and pull them in. This should start younger. E was older than 18. There was no Political Science in my school. It was a private school and catholic school. So i think maybe if they understood how it affects their lives, they might get out there and vote more. As far as these people who are not voting because they dont know if they like this. If they are not voting, they are going to trump. Especially this year, the election is being once again manipulated by russia. Host sam, what are you hearing from these two callers, one here in washington and one in massachusetts . Guest we are hearing issues that tie nonvoters and younger generation. When we asked this emerging part of the electorate, 1824 about what they are thinking, they are less interested in politics, and less likely to think tear voice makes a difference and what we are hearing from these two callers speaks to why. Young people are less exposed to politics at home than previous generations. If they are not exposed in school either, they may not have a strong sense about how to think about politics, how they can can engage and the system works and a lot of good ideas how to improve civic education. Here in florida, Civics Education is required and true in some states and other states are exploring ways to do that. Knight Foundation Helps efforts through libraries to teach Media Literacy and Information Literacy so people can navigate that. And new methods for teaching civics. Way to be more about the actions to debate critical issues. That is something that is really critical for younger generations. Younger generations are less likely to see a system reflecting them. You heard it from both of these colleagues. The woman from massachusetts, her son is more interested in the marijuana issue and people who are much more energized about issues of climate and issues of gun violence and gun policy and similarly, many young people are excited about a different kind of candidate who they may no longer see on the debate stage. Andrew yang was able to build momentum around people who were looking for a different voice and different set of issues. You are seeing the same thing with senator Bernie Sanders. He is tapping into people who arent excited about what some of the other candidates tend to represent. Again, what is so critical here is that we find ways to help find that the system is to participate in. Caller are there any studies done about breaking up the twoparty system and then multiple parties and these two parties that have been arguing about abortion and gay rights for 100 years while the world is on fire. Thats why people arent excited. Obviously its not working. Any idea about breaking up this twoparty monopoly or whatever you want to call it. Guest great question. We didnt ask people about whether they would like to see a different party. We did ask people nationally about who they might vote for. Nd plurelt of folks were interested in either President Trump, reelecting President Trump or a generic democratic candidate. But there were a number of people who said they would prefer neither of those candidates and vote for someone else and arent sure. There are people that arent voting that are the kind of folks who would consider Something Like a third party. Thats not what we directly asked them. You do see those who do vote and those who arent voting real challenges to the way the Current Party system is dieding the lines. Most people in the republican establishment would say donald trump was an unconventional candidate in that primary. People in the democratic establishment, the previous guest on this show would talk bout Bernie Sanders an unconventional candidate. Donald trump is now president of the United States and bernie sappeders currently the front runner. Among those who are voting you are seeing them reach for at least a different way of imagining what the two major parties are focused on. Among nonvoters, views arent contained in any one party. And it comes to issues like building a war or pathway to citizenship and looking like democrats when it comes to see Health Care Reform and not the replace and repeal of the Affordable Care act. Whether that materializes as a third party, im not sure. I think that most political observers would say we are seeing change today in what the different parties stand for and likely to see more change. Host if people want to get the study. Kf. Org. W do they can hear and the voices of people who dont vote in this country and the voices of people who are trying to those who dont vote from all backgrounds and all points of view and will have a chance through those resources to find out what kind of nonvoter are you to see other people who are making the same choice you are and what they are like. We would encourage people whether you havent missed an election. Or you have missed every election by design, we would encourage to check out those organize. At www one day until the South Carolina democratic primary tomorrow. We are live in the state capital, columbia, South Carolina for Bernie Sanders speaking at a get out the vote rally. It should get under way shortly. Well show you some more from todays washington journal. Guest we know very, very little. All of these briefings from the u. S. Intelligence agencies that happen in the classified format and what we have heard from leaked information is that the russians are trying to support who the information operation, both President Trump and Bernie Sanders. We learned from the Mueller Report exactly what the russians were doing with facebook and twitter, et cetera. They have taken down instances like russia and iran and china and others are trying to manipulate the social media platforms to push a certain message. They have gotten very good. As a result, the russians have adapted and one of the things we learned from the reporting of the intelligence, they are using things to make it much more difficult to detect, when is a twitter account a russian control or is it an american. Then there is free speech protected by the first amendment. Its very difficult to know now and that is a huge challenge. And we are seeing protected free speech or foreign interference. Host what do they feel is the most effective way to interfere . Guest the incentives are very different. For the russians, their intent has been able to sow chaos and am amplify the devices that we have. We have lots of things that divide us and the russian operation in 2016 and the ones are we are hearing now and really trying to push on the hot button issues, race relations, economic inequality to make us feel more divided. One of the reasons they have been supporting sanders and trump is because they see these two candidates as potentially divisive in the United States and want to s omp w that ivision. Guest we want to hear host we want to hear your views. Please call these numbers or text us with your first name, city and state. What are you watching . . Guest im more concerned about cyberattacks. I have no doubt they are happening as we speak and have been happening since 2016 in the leadup to 2020 and increasingly difficult to detect. Im much more concerned about a breach into our Security Systems whether it is election machines, the infrastructure of the voting apparatus. We know from 2016 when the intelligence reports were made public that the russians were breaching and playing around in our voter data bases, where we register to vote. You can imagine a situation in one small town, one municipality, you show up to vote and youre not registered and turned away. And just that little drop of concern that the election has not been free and fair would do damage to our democratic process. Host why does it concern you . The way the government has responded to the 2016 interference . Guest our response has been understated and much, much lower than the actual threat. For example, the United States government still doesnt have what we call a coordinated strategy to respond. And we know this isnt just the russian. The russian playbook is global. We have the iranians and chinese d im concerned about the 20 20s. Now we are dealing with russia, iran and china and maybe all kinds of other groups that are terested in making up ads or undermining our electoral process because of our Political Climate has really been not at all efficient or enough. Indiscernible] we have done a lot here and built a robust Field Program at has not knocked on over 100,000 doors. We built a pool of volunteers that look like america. [cheers and applause] and we have been on the ground m