However, since 58 percent of all non-voters say they chose not to vote while 40 percent say that something prevented them from voting, procedural changes may not have the impact suggested by these responses. Only 21 percent cited procedural changes. Moreover, nonvoters are not a monolithic group. They are relatively avid news consumers who follow politics and public affairs regularly. They are extremely upbeat about the state of the Union and tend to be more positive than other nonvoters about a wide variety of governmental and social institutions.
Doers tend to be more involved than members of the other nonvoter clusters in their communities.
Five percent of the Doers say they volunteered on a political campaign last year and still failed to vote. One-quarter of all nonvoters can be described as the Unplugged. Compared with the other four clusters of nonvoters, the Unplugged are disproportionately young-59 percent are under the age of 30, including 41 percent who are between the ages of 18 and 24. These are among the most information deprived of all nonvoters. While 40 percent of the Doers say they read a newspaper six or seven days a week, only 7 percent of the Unplugged say they read a newspaper that often.