Humans are territorial animals, and it’s natural for us to stick to our own turf (except, of course, when raiding another pack’s territory). But I would suggest that, if you seek to register new Democrats to vote, the last place you should probably be doing it is in your own backyard.
We Dems in particular tend run to in packs...called ‘major metropolitan areas.’ And with its many crowd-drawing venues such as supermarkets, shopping malls, libraries, street festivals, restaurant districts and the like, a metropolis can certainly seem like a great place to sign up voters. Plus it’s convenient; you probably live no more than a few minutes away from a good crowd-drawing venue.
But in North Carolina anyway (as, I would guess, in any state with a large rural population), the chart above suggests that your best bet, in terms of bang-for-the-buck, might well be to hit the road and head for a strategically chosen rural county.
This list shows North Carolina’s most under-performing counties, in terms of the percentage of their voting age populations actually registered to vote. Just for fun, I’ve also included a column on the right showing the Democrat-to-Republican (D:R) ratio of each such county’s currently registered voters.
Two things pop out, to my eye:
- I don’t know anyone who lives in any of these counties. This is definitely not my turf.
- A majority of these mostly rural counties (almost two thirds) lean Democratic.
The second of these two points means that, in all probability, a majority of folks in these counties who are not registered to vote are most likely natural-born Democrats. And unlike urban counties, there are (percentage-wise) a lot of unregistered Dems there. Sure, you could almost certainly register more new Democrats on a Saturday afternoon in a big city than you could out in the sticks. But in terms of impacting state legislature races and fighting gerrymandering, your bang for the buck awaits you in these lower-population and terribly under-registered counties, which are usually the base for reactionary Republican legislators.
If you’re an all-too-typical metrosexual Democrat, you maybe do a fair amount of tsk-tsking about those benighted deplorables out in the sticks while you preach to the choir at your local Starbucks. But maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe, instead, you should be registering new Democrats in the heart of enemy territory, where every new vote has an amplified impact on your state legislature.
Consider Robeson County NC, in 5th place on the chart above, with just 76% of its voting age population registered. It’s a largely rural county with a majority-minority population (68 percent are American Indian, African American, or Hispanic) and a whopping five-to-one Democratic lean. Of four state House districts that Robeson County contributes to, one is held by a Republican. I would suggest that that’s approximately one more than it should be (even taking gerrymandering into consideration). Ditto on the state Senate side of the General Assembly building, where the one senator representing Robeson is a diehard Republican.
Judging from our interactive maps of voter registration action by county over at NC-GoVote, somebody out there agrees with me about this strategy, because lately Robeson is one of the hottest sources of new registrations, on a percentage basis, just about every week. And our interactive maps reveal that whoever is behind all that voter registration action is racking up serious numbers of new Democrats. That can’t have NC state senator Danny Earl Britt Jr. (R) feeling very good about his prospects right now.
It isn’t ‘carpetbagging’ for a city mouse to venture out here in the sticks (where I myself live). In many of these poorer, rural counties the county Democratic Party is sadly stretched too thin, and reg’lar folk here hold down two and even three jobs (if they can find them), and so lack the kind of free time it takes for organized public service. Contact the county Dem party. Ask how you, Mr. or Ms. City Mouse, can help. And if they hand you a clipboard and a stack of voter registration forms, go for it!
Hey, if you’re a North Carolina voter (city mouse or country mouse), you should be protecting your voter registration from voter caging, poll book purging, and Russian hackers by signing up for NC-GoVote’s Reg Watch service. Do it now, y’all!