Getting out the Vote

Both Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post are carrying stories on their websites on the effort by both US parties to get expats to register and file absentee ballots in Tuesday's election. What makes this story interesting is what is not being covered.

In a series of largely publicized events, a group called Vote From Israel organized a last minute registration and filing meetings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The events were organized so those whose ballots had not yet arrived, or had not already done so, could directly fill out a ballot and vote. Since we had not received our ballots in the mail, my wife and I attended the meeting in Jerusalem so we could be sure to vote.

Although both Haaretz and the Post note the "crowd" was mostly religious, we were struck by the range of affiliations present, especially by the large showing of young Americans studying in Israel--an interesting mix of political positions since one literally wears ones politics. Women in the crowd were mostly uncovered as were lots of the men. The point is that there was a good cross section of the American cultural mix.

The reported interest in the story is the exit poll. Participants at these events progressed through 4 stages: registration, voting, mailing, and exiting. Each stage required some pen and paper work: forms, ballots, envolopes, and surveys. The last was optional: my wife complied and I did not. The results of the survey, surprise surprise, was McCain. Haaretz describes the process:

American citizens who voted in the U.S. presidential elections via absentee ballots from Israel overwhelmingly favored Sen. John McCain, according to exit polls released Thursday. Seventy-six percent said they voted for the Republican candidate, while only 24 percent voted for the Democrat Barack Obama.

The poll was based on data from about 800 voters who attended U.S. election events, one in Tel Aviv and two in Jerusalem, and from among 1,700 citizens who were helped with registering online by VoteFromIsrael.org, the recently-founded non-partisan voter support group who commissioned the poll. More than two thirds of those polled attended events in Jerusalem; there, 76 voted for McCain and 24 for Obama. Just nine percent of those polled were in Tel Aviv, where votes were split almost evenly: 51 percent voted for the Republican while 49 favored the Democrat.

Seventy percent of those polled defined themselves as either Orthodox or Ultra-Orthodox. Four percent said they were not Jewish. Only 52 percent also posses Israeli citizenship, while almost a third of are students.

Almost 60 percent said that "foreign policy including Israel" was the most important factor that influenced their decision; only nine percent said that the war in Iraq was the most important factor.

The polls, which were conducted by the Jerusalem-based research firm Keevon, starkly contrast polls among voters in the United States, which give the Illinois senator a comfortable lead. Experts estimate that of the more than 200,000 American citizens living in Israel, about 45,000 requested absentee ballots.

An estimated 40,000 Americans living in Israel are expected to vote, and pollster Mitchell Barak says he believes his survey is a good indicator on how they will choose.

Of course, papers filing the stories have to note the bias in the method used (as opposed to the abysmal exit polls used to predict the Livni landslide--not). They also noted that in secular Tel Aviv, the McCain/Obama point spread was closer than in religious Jerusalem. The Post's story, entitled Orthodox 'over-sampled'in US exit poll, describes the poll but leaves out the critical component.

A total of 817 absentee ballot voters answered the 22-question survey at three voting events, Barak said: At the Dancing Camel Brewery in Tel Aviv on Sunday, at the YU Seminary in Jerusalem on Monday and in the capital's OU Center a day later. Sixty percent of the respondents described themselves as Orthodox.

The poll also conducted an online survey among 1700 voters assisted by the "Vote from Israel" organization.

An estimated 45,000 Americans in Israel requested absentee ballots. Fifty seven percent of the respondents cited "foreign policy, including Israel" as the basis for their presidential preference, while only 14 percent said the ailing economy determined their candidate of choice.

Now, 45,000 people voting is a chunk of change in anyone's book. Ehud Barak became the leader of the Labor Party in an election of about 35,000 voters and the recent Mofaz/Livni run off was about the same size. So, what's missing in the Post's story, and totally ignored in Haaretz, is what was the purpose of a three page exit survey if it was only interested in who you voted for and why.

The fact is that there are Israeli elections coming up and politicians are looking to expand their power base by enfranchising population segments that heretofore have not been part of the politics-as-usual mix. In the mayoral race in Jerusalem, candidates have been working with Russians and East Jerusalem Israeli Arabs. But the real sleeping lion in Israel is the Anglo Israeli segment.

Most of that three page survey, my wife reports in her exit poll to me, was about Israeli politics. One does not need to read Marx and Engels to know that in politics, a social class that becomes aware of its own political interests becomes a power in itself. Unlike traditional Israeli politics, Anglo culture prefers a bottom up, grass roots approach to consensus making.

The unspoken story here is not the McCain Obama race; it is the emerging political power of the Anglo Israeli voting bloc. It is this power that Netanyahu is courting openly. Netanyahu literally speaks this culture to say nothing of understanding the Anglo way of doing business. If this population is more religious and more conservative, these are important demographics to know for doing politics--in Israel. Under an Obama administration, the Amerikai might be willing to contribute more of that Anglo culture to local politics--a windfall profit for Netanyahu.

As for the problem of oversampling the religious and the conservative right, well, it really shows a lack of political savvy. This week it has been raining and the weather has just been plain awful. In the words of W.C. Fields, it's not been fit for man nor beast. Every American political activist knows that weather is one of the critical factors of getting out the vote--miserable days favor Republicans and the "consistant voter". The young set tend to not turn out if they think the election is over (convinced from popular opinion). So, if the weather's bad, and their vote doesn't matter (the party is over already), they'll go out and do something more fun than voting.

No wonder the get out the vote effort in Tel Aviv was held at a brewery.