Readers React: Why people don’t vote

To the editor: Referendums for mandating workers’ sick leave and raising minimum wages indeed might increase voter turnout in municipal elections. But so would a more generic referendum of a sort: Place a “none of the above” option on the ballot beneath candidates’ names. (“How to boost voter turnout in L.A. -- and it isn’t offering prizes,” Op-Ed, Aug. 19)

Since the 1970s, ballots in Nevada have allowed voters to mark “none of these candidates.” When “none” outpolls every candidate — which has happened — that sends a strong message.

Similarly empowering our state’s voters would surely bring more of them to the polls.

Betty Turner, Sherman Oaks

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To the editor: The idea to pay people to vote sounds like it came from a politician; someone who is used to being paid to vote doesn’t know any other way.

I believe that many people don’t vote because from administration to administration, at any level of government, their lives just don’t change for the better.

Most of us see the rich getting richer while the rest of us — well, you know the story. Corporations take advantage of loopholes. The very wealthy do likewise to make much of their income taxed at a lower rate, if at all.

The rules that allow this are created by our politicians, whom we pay to administer our government. No tea party candidate, libertarian, Democrat or Republican is going to change this complicated bag of rules.

We hear all the promises for change before every election. We just don’t believe them anymore. So why vote?

Dean Blau, Van Nuys