Crossroads County - In Fervor for Voting, Retirees Hold a Key - NYTimes.com

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeby Kirk Johnson

In an election year of hype and hyperbole, one fact resonates across all contests and candidates: in midterm elections, many people tune out and stay home, but older voters vote. It is a deeply rutted pattern in American history that could swing race after race.

“We’re calling them, we’re mailing them — they’re getting a tremendous amount of attention,” said Walt Klein, a longtime political consultant in Colorado who is working for Ken Buck, the Tea Party-backed Republican candidate for the Senate.
But politicians like Mr. Buck, in focusing on significant issues for retirees like Social Security and Medicare, are also finding that the picture is more complicated than a simple calculation that gray hair equates to a certain position on issue X or Y.
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109-year-old Bastrop woman casts her vote by mail

By Joshunda Sanders- Austin AMERICAN-STATESMAN Staff

Amanda Jones, 109, the daughter of a man born into slavery, has lived a life long enough to touch three centuries. And after voting consistently as a Democrat for 70 years, she has voted early for the country's first black presidential nominee.

The middle child of 13, Jones, who is African American, is part of a family that has lived in Bastrop County for five generations. The family has remained a fixture in Cedar Creek and other parts of the county, even when its members had to eat at segregated barbecue dives and walk through the back door while white customers walked through the front, said Amanda Jones' 68-year-old daughter, Joyce Jones.

Amanda Jones' father urged her to exercise her right to vote, despite discriminatory practices at the polls and poll taxes meant to keep black and poor people from voting. Those practices were outlawed for federal elections with the 24th Amendment in 1964, but not for state and local races in Texas until 1966.

Amanda Jones says she cast her first presidential vote for Franklin Roosevelt, but she doesn't recall which of his four terms that was. When she did vote, she paid a poll tax, her daughters said. That she is able, for the first time, to vote for a black presidential nominee for free fills her with joy, Jones said.

One of Amanda Jones' 33 grandchildren, Brenda Baker, 44, said the family is moved by the election's significance to the matriarch.

Jones is part of a small percentage of active voters above the age of 100 in the state — and the country.

Secretary of State spokeswoman Ashley Burton said Texas can't confirm whether Jones is the state's oldest active voter because there is too much voter information to sort through. At the county level, there are other challenges. An election official in Hays County said its records are not searchable by age, and Bastrop County elections administrator Nora Cano said that some counties automatically list voters who were born before the turn of the 20th century with birth dates of January 1900.
The oldest active voter in Travis County is 105, officials said, and in Williamson County the oldest is 106 — making Jones the oldest-known active voter in Central Texas.

Age and the presidential candidates

Saul Friedman Gray Matters in Newsday September 6, 2008 Suddenly, no matter what your politics may be, age has become an important issue in this presidential campaign.

Voting and Civic Engagement Supplements to the Current Population Survey

The U.S. Census Bureau requests authorization from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct the November 2008 Voting and Civic Engagement Supplements to the Current Population Survey (CPS). Supplement (Voting and Registration supplement in previous years) continues the biennial collection of data concerning voting and registration that has been requested periodically since 1964. The data yield statistics on voter (and nonvoter) characteristics and current voter trends. The data will also enable policymakers to keep issues up to date, such as changes in participation in the election process by demographic characteristics such as age, sex, race, ethnicity, and educational attainment. The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) has entered into an interagency agreement with the Census Bureau to conduct the Civic Engagement supplement, which will appear for the first time in conjunction with the CPS. The civic engagement supplement will provide information on the extent to which American communities are places where individuals are civically active. It will also provide information on the number of Americans who are active in their communities, communicating with one another on issues of public concern, and interacting with public institutions and private enterprises. The information will also provide the number of Americans who engage in activities that promote positive relationships with those of equal and differing socio-economic or professional levels. This survey will be the only source of nationally representative data on such information as: level of participation in organized groups, extent of political action and knowledge, extent of connections with other community members, and how often individuals get news and information from various media sources. When combined with demographic characteristics (age, sex, race, education, occupation, income), the data can provide information on the relationship between these characteristics and the level of civic engagement in the United States. Government agency analysts and private, state and local leaders will use this data to compare levels in their area of interest to the national level of civic engagement, and to formulate policies that foster healthy communities. This clearance will also cover the collection in November 2010, the Voting supplement, which will consist of the voting and registration questions only.