Charles Hopkins did not cast a single vote in any election for the first seven decades of his life.
Hopkins has lived all of his 72 years in Maryland and D.C., and as a low-income Black man, he could have been neighbors with many of the federal officeholders who appeared on the ballot. But, looking back, he was never convinced that voting would make a difference in his daily life.
“That’s why people don’t vote,” says Hopkins, who lives in Southeast. “Because why would I vote when it’s not changing my conditions?”
Voters like Hopkins contribute to an enduring demographic disparity in democratic participation: Low-income citizens are less likely to cast ballots than those who make more money.
Of the roughly 35 million Americans living at or below the $50,000 threshold widely accepted as “low income,” just about half reported participating in any of the past five presidential elections, according to an analysis of 2020 U.S. Census data. By comparison, 86 percent of Americans with incomes of $150,000 or higher reported casting a ballot during the same time period.
In 2020, the most recent presidential contest, just 7.4 percent of Americans who, like Hopkins, reported making less than $30,000 voted, despite accounting for roughly 9.7 percent of the population.
Earlier this month, D.C.’s Democratic primary, in which only about 26 percent of registered voters participated, revealed a familiar income gap in turnout. Ward 8, where Hopkins lives, has the lowest reported median income in the city and the lowest voter turnout, at 17.5 percent of registered voters in the ward. (No other ward in the District dipped below the 20 percent mark.)
Conversely, Ward 3, which includes the Northwest neighborhoods such as Cleveland Park, Cathedral Heights, and Woodley Park, has a median income more than three times that of Ward 8 and had a voter turnout of 31.12 percent in the June primary.
“It’s not because they’re not interested in elections,” says Shailly Barnes, policy director for Poor People’s Campaign, a social justice group that has studied low-income voters and concluded that few believe political campaigns speak to their issues. “It’s because that participation is made harder by both not being reflected in political agendas and political priorities.”
The result is that those who turn out to vote have a higher median income than the nation’s population, which experts say, at a time of wide economic inequality, results in policies less responsive to the needs of low-income Americans and creates a cycle of exclusion.
Experts cite a number of reasons why low-income Americans are less likely to go to the ballot box, including a lack of understanding of how the civic process works and their role in it. While efforts to increase ballot access—such as mail-in ballots or extended voting hours—can be beneficial, those who have studied low-income voter behavior say these are minor factors in closing the socioeconomic gap.
“When people are not voting it is because they don’t think it’s worth the trouble or they don’t think that they’re going to get their voices heard,” says Andrew Perrin, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University. “So what we really need to fix is not the mechanics of voting but actually the connection to the democratic process and to having their voices heard that voters are looking for.”
David Schultz, 45, a criminal reform and social justice advocate in the District, did not vote for many years. But after his incarceration, he realized how local services and his community could be impacted by funding cuts.
On a warm Friday in April, Schultz worked the floor at a job fair in Southeast, shaking hands, exchanging greetings, and handing out pamphlets concerning an upcoming D.C. Council budget hearing that would consider legislation to fund housing for returning citizens.
“I’ve seen the importance in being able to show up and show out when it comes to voting, or any kind of legislative hearings,” Schultz says. “I’m very big now on the legislative process, especially when it comes to my local community, not so much the big scheme of things but really my local community because it has a direct impact on things.”
Experts say that local engagement is key to turning low-income citizens, who are often also members of other marginalized groups, into voters. Schultz says that for years he felt like his life was largely unaffected by national politics, at least in the short term. Most pressing for him were tangible issues—re-entry housing, access to public transportation, street repairs in his neighborhood—while engaging in regional or national politics felt irrelevant to the present.
“I think the impact is really trickle-down and takes a long time.” Schultz says. “People lose interest in that, because they don’t see the direct effect on a short-term basis.”
Thomas Dargan, 60, of Baltimore, who has been involved in local get-out-the-vote efforts, says that in his experience, political candidates don’t come to Sandtown and other low-income areas in the city other than around election time, which breeds further distrust.
“When they do get into office, you turn around and find out that the same person that you elected to get into office is the same person that’s doing more harm to the community than help,” Dargan says. No matter who is elected, he adds, “it still seems like the poor people at the end of the day are the ones that still end up not benefiting at all whatsoever, whether we vote or not vote.”
In Baltimore, the five neighborhoods with the lowest voter turnout—46 percent or less in each area—all have median incomes under $38,000. Comparatively, the five Baltimore neighborhoods with the highest voter turnout—73 percent or higher—each have a median income of at least $72,000. Dargan’s neighborhood, Sandtown, had one of the lowest voter turnouts in Baltimore with only 44 percent of the population voting in the 2020 general election. Sandtown’s median income is just under $27,000.
James M. Avery, professor of political science at Stockton University and a scholar of voting inequality, says the key to mobilizing low-income Americans to participate in elections is overcoming well-earned cynicism toward a system where it seems some voices are heard more frequently than others. While many low-income Americans believe their voices do not matter, Avery says, participating in elections can produce real results.
“When lower income people turn out to vote at rates closer to higher income people, they end up with policy outcomes that are more consistent with their preferences, which tend to reduce economic inequality,” Avery says.
Hopkins, who also goes by Mansa Musa, was incarcerated right around the time he turned 18 and became eligible to vote. After several decades of incarceration, Hopkins was released in 2019. He became a local activist and got involved with efforts to organize currently and formerly incarcerated people, and realized that, based on a recent local law, he’s eligible to vote. He voted for the first time in November 2020, casting a ballot in a local D.C. election.
Hopkins lives in Southeast’s Ward 8, which has the lowest median household income in the District, and saw the lowest turnout of registered voters during the 2020 presidential election.
“When over and over again it’s the same thing, they don’t have the confidence in the process and take the position of, ‘Why should I vote if it’s never going to change?’” Hopkins says. “It’s not apathy, moreso a realization that this process is not for me.”
In the years since he first voted, Hopkins has been volunteering with voter registration efforts, talking to neighbors about local issues, and showing up at D.C. Council meetings and town halls.
“I look at it from the perspective of organizing people: school boards, city council representative, any local board that impacts policies that are linked to the community,” Hopkins says. “Overall when I look at the electoral process, I look at it in the context of what person is running for office, what impact they’ll have on areas that I live in.”
Even so, Hopkins did not participate in the June 4 primary election in which Ward 8’s incumbent Councilmember Trayon White cruised to victory over two opponents, all but guaranteeing him a third term on the Council. (He then promptly left for a tropical vacation).
Voting just didn’t seem worth it, Hopkins says, noting that he wasn’t convinced White or either of his challengers would do anything to address the rampant unemployment, high mortality rate, lack of affordable housing, and the food desert in the neighborhood.
“He doesn’t represent me, he doesn’t represent my community,” Hopkins says.
Aarushi Sahejpal of the Investigative Reporting Workshop contributed to this report.