By Richard Nieva
While Jimmy McMillan’s “Rent is Too Damn High” party may not have much chance of winning the New York gubernatorial race on Tuesday, he is hoping that his everyman message will resonate in his home base of Flatbush, Brooklyn, a neighborhood with historically low voter turnout.
McMillan, the 64-year-old former postal worker and bodyguard, was spoofed last weekend on “Saturday Night Live’s” Weekend Update, after rising to Internet fame for his performance at the New York Gubernatorial debate two weeks ago.
In the state’s last race for governor in 2006, only about 36,000 of the almost 117,000 enrolled voters in the 42nd and 58th assembly districts—which make up Flatbush proper—voted in the election, according to data from the New York State Board of Elections. The number of eligible voters has slightly risen this year to 125,000, according to the board’s survey conducted in April.
In 2006, the population of the community board—which comprises Flatbush and neighboring Midwood—was 53 percent foreign born and 44 percent non-citizens. According to Census data, the community board is 42.7 percent Caribbean. Of the 169,000 population, over 30,000 only had high school diplomas—the most of any education group.
“Election day coming, and they sitting on the couch. And that couch is comfortable. They ain’t getting up,” laughed McMillan, referring to his experience running for mayor of New York City in May 2009.
That year he received 2,332 out of about 1,178,000 votes cast, according to the NYC Board of Elections.
“If you’re looking at an immigrant community in particular, you’re going to see lower turnout rates,” said Michael McDonald, a public and international affairs professor at George Mason University and expert in voter turnout.
This immigrant demographic is the group McMillan would like to help. “They will come out and they have so much to say, but they’re not registered voters. That is continuously a problem,” said McMillan, who also recognizes that there are language barriers.
Clara Felix, a 65-year-old Flatbush resident, is not voting because she only has her green card, which does not allow her to vote. Felix had not heard of McMillan, but smiled and agreed with his prospect of lowering rent. She lives with her daughter, who pays $1,000 for their two-bedroom apartment.
McDonald insists that the way to increase voter turnout in the long run is by having an organization in the neighborhood like the now-defunct ACORN to register voters.
But beyond having the strict ability to vote, there are other psychological factors that concern immigrants when it comes to voting. Studies show that it takes new immigrants a few years to socialize into American culture, usually taking them a couple of election cycles to vote, said McDonald.
McMillan said he has built his platform on reaching out to the poor.
If elected, McMillan said he would implement an “economic state of emergency” plan, which includes lowering rent for businesses paying $12,000 or more to $6,000 and waiving all taxes owed to the state. The logic, he said, is moving money around so people have more to spend.
But the prospect of galvanizing poor voters is a complicated one, said McDonald. People of lower socioeconomic status—those with less money or education—tend to have lower turnouts, he said.
Factors like identification or permanence are what usually compel people to vote, he said. For example, a parent with a child in the school system or someone who owns a home may feel more integrated into the community. “You’re going to have to feel like you’re a part of a society in order to want to contribute to it by voting and participate in it,” said McDonald.
McMillan hopes to capitalize on his media celebrity to drive in voters. “A lot of young kids in Flatbush are coming up to me and showing me crazy love. Just by that alone, this may be an upset,” he said. “If people vote for who they see on TV—like they already have in the past—if that is the case, I’ve already won,” he said.
According to McDonald, having celebrity status has worked in the past. He mentioned Jesse Ventura of Minn. and Arnold Schwarzenegger of Calif. winning their governor races, though he stressed that media exposure is not a golden ticket.
McMillan said his sights are wide, counting on votes from Manhattan and the rest of the state. But he said he’ll need the turnout support of his own neighborhood as well.
Says McMillan: “We’re hoping this time around they’ll have a change of heart.”
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