Just 35% of the city’s voters cast ballots four years ago but initiatives such as voting block parties aim to change that

Millions of Americans will cast ballots – or have already – in this year’s midterm elections amid sky-high enthusiasm and a surge of interest in voting. Kendra Evans will not be among them.

The 24-year-old Baltimore resident is registered to vote, but has no intention of doing so this year.

Evans is unemployed and struggling to find work. On this afternoon, she accompanied Peppa the Pig and MegaMan – her niece and nephew – trick-or-treating around west Baltimore’s Gilmor Homes, a neglected public housing project where Freddie Gray was arrested in what proved to be a fatal police encounter that sparked days of unrest in 2015. Despite urgent calls for change, little has. Poverty and crime are more resilient, it appears to Evans, than the politicians who come with broad smiles and ready handshakes, promising progress that never quite materializes.

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“It doesn’t matter who’s in charge,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Nothing ever changes.”

Evans is hardly alone. Baltimore has one of the lowest rates of voter participation among the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. Just 35% of registered Baltimore city voters cast ballots in the 2014 midterm elections, compared with nearly 45% statewide.

This year’s midterm elections have been called the most consequential in a generation. The outcome will determine if Republicans are emboldened to enact the president’s agenda or if Democrats are empowered to stop it. The high stakes are reflected by the rise of early voting across states. A recent Washington Post-ABC poll found two-thirds of registered voters said it was more important to vote this year than in past midterm elections.

But if history is a guide, more Americans are likely to join Evans on the sidelines than vote in 2018.

US midterm election to have ‘higher than typical’ voter turnout, analysts say Read more

Historically, turnout is lower in midterm elections than in presidential years, by a margin of 20 points. As many as 143 million Americans didn’t cast ballots in 2o14, the lowest percentage of voter participation in more than 70 years, according to the US Elections Project.

Low voter participation affects rural communities and urban centers. But there are striking demographic and economic differences between who votes and who does not. Voters tend to be older, wealthier and more educated than the general population while non-voters are more likely to be young, poor, less educated and non-white. Young people tend to vote at the lowest rates of any age group, and that number drops sharply during midterm elections. In 2014, just 20% of adults under 30 voted.

In Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality and Turnout in the United States, political scientists Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler argue that those who vote increasingly do not represent those who don’t on critical issues of economic policy and the scope of government. They conclude that voters tend to be more “economically conservative” whereas non-voters are more likely to favor government spending on healthcare and public education.

“In any given election, you’re only going to vote if it seems rational to do so,” said Leighley, who is a professor at American University. “That means that people have to believe that their vote could matter.”

In Baltimore, residents expressed disillusionment with a political process they believe has repeatedly failed them. In this overwhelmingly Democratic city, few were pleased with the current state of affairs in Washington but they saw voting as futile.

“I just feel like my vote doesn’t count,” Coreya Cheatham, 21, said as she bounced her one-year-old daughter, dressed as Snow White, on her hip. She would have voted for Barack Obama if she had been old enough but since turning 18 she has not cast a ballot.

Others said they lacked information about the election, the candidates and how to vote. Or they harbored a deep mistrust of the government, a lack of interest in politics or disliked the negative tone of the campaigns.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Baltimore resident and Uber driver Jonathan Hussey: ‘The lesser of two evils is still evil.’ Photograph: JM Giordano/The Guardian

Jonathan Hussey, 35, a transplant from California, said his brother’s one-time foray into local politics soured his view of the whole system. He believes all politicians “lie through their teeth” to get elected and then turn around and do it again to be re-elected. None of the candidates are appealing, he says, and he doesn’t affiliate with either political party – so why vote?

“The lesser of two evils is still evil,” Hussey said.

Across the country, Americans face structural barriers to voting. Georgia has come under intense scrutiny for purging its voter rolls. Native American leaders in North Dakota are rushing to provide thousands of tribal residents with ID cards to comply with the state’s newly tightened voting requirements. In Florida, an estimated 10% of adults are prohibited from voting due to a felony conviction.

That is less true in Maryland, where the state legislature has moved to expand voting rights in recent years. In April, it joined a growing number of states that allow residents to automatically register to vote when they renew a driver’s license or interact with a state agency. Maryland also provides eight days of early voting and same-day registration. On the ballot this year, Maryland voters will decide whether to amend the state constitution to allow residents to register on election day, which is currently prohibited.

But there are also “psychological barriers” to voting, said Sam Novey, a co-founder of #BaltimoreVotes, a nonpartisan group formed last year to increase voter participation. In the months before the election, volunteers canvassed the city to register new voters and encourage participation. But this year they’re also trying something new: voting block parties.

“A lot of people feel this process isn’t for them,” he said. “What we’re trying to do with these parties is to communicate that every single person is welcome at the polls and that their vote matters.”

At a Halloween-themed early voting party in Highlandtown, a team of #BaltimoreVotes volunteers handed out treats to costumed children and pamphlets on voting to their parents. As an early lesson in civic duty, those not quite eligible to vote could cast a ballot for their favorite pumpkin. (Dracula won.)

On election day, they will partner with community leaders and local organizations to host more than 70 similar parties at polling places around the city with food, music and games.

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Not since the early 20th century has a majority of Americans voted in the nation’s midterm elections. But there are signs that maybe, just maybe, that will change.

Nathan Akri, a 19-year-old photography student at Maryland Institute College of Art, shocked his group of friends when he announced that he was not planning to vote in the midterm elections.

“What!” one of his friends said, incredulous. “How is that possible?” Another student shook his head and placed an arm around Akri’s shoulder: “We need to talk, dude.”

Of the nearly dozen students Akri was with that morning, he was the only one who would not vote.

But Akri, who was raised in Baltimore, insists that he’s not a cynic – he just doesn’t like politics.

“Everyone always says your vote matters. I believe that,” he said. “I will 100% vote in the future.”

But not this year?

“No, not this year.”