Are unregistered potential voters even worth talking to?

(Politico)- Tens of millions of eligible potential voters aren’t registered — and many are uninterested in changing that.

Despite that, there are opportunities to engage some unregistered voters by messaging on abortion and local issues, according to a series of focus groups from the Voter Participation Center, a nonpartisan, liberal-aligned nonprofit that aims to register and turn out members of underrepresented populations through direct mail and digital outreach. The focus groups, first shared with Score, were conducted by GBAO in February and consisted of six to seven participants in each group: unmarried women over 35; women under 35; Latinos; and men under 35, all of whom were not registered to vote.

As states across the country move to further restrict access to alternative voting methods to in-person voting on Election Day, like mail-in ballots or drop boxes, some unregistered voters feel discouraged from voting. Beyond logistical challenges, others expressed skepticism about the fairness of voting and dissatisfaction in the candidates running, as well as the feeling that the outcome of an election doesn’t impact their lives. Few participants were willing to change their views on voting.

But Tom Lopach, head of the Voter Participation Center, said this hard-to-move group can be swayed by bridging the information gap — and giving them “permission” to not know everything about voting. In some of last year’s elections, the group tested language saying, “You don’t have to be a physician to remove a splinter, and you don’t have to know everything about the government to be a voter,” which Lopach said was successful.