Who Votes?
STEVEN HARMON, writing in the San Jose Mercury News, reviews a new report by the Public Policy Institute of California entitled "California's Exclusive Electorate." Some sobering findings: "The chasm between likely and unlikely voters is deep, in both socioeconomic status and how they view politics:
• Likely voters are more likely to be homeowners (77 percent), college graduates (53 percent), and with household incomes of $60,000 or more (56 percent).
• Non-voters, of whom 63 percent are Latino, are largely renters (66 percent), are less likely to graduate from college (17 percent), and have a household income of less than $60,000 a year (82 percent).
• California is the only state in which no ethnic or racial group constitutes the majority, with whites representing 46 percent of the population and Latinos 32 percent. Yet, whites make up 70 percent of the electorate, and Latinos only 16 percent."