Voter Anxiety

With the election only days away now, anxiety has spread like an epidemic among voters. While voters experience anxiety to some extent during most elections, this season seems to carry more tension than any election in the past twenty years.

The evidence of this anxiety can be seen throughout the country. The National Public Radio service recently reported the record number of early voters turning out in Florida. Some Florida counties reported that early voters waited up to three hours to cast their ballot well before the November 2nd deadline. Lida Rodriguez Taseff, head of the Miami Dade Election Reform Coalition, believed that this heavy early turnout of voters was due to a "lack of trust from everyday Americans..." In Florida especially, this lack of trust stems from the recounts which have plagued recent national elections.

This week, around thirty percent of voters will cast their ballot via an electronic touch screen. This method is meant to be easier to decipher than, say, the infamous Florida ballots from the 2000 Presidential election. But some voters are not convinced about the effectiveness of this system. One Florida voter voiced her opinion: "We need a paper trail [to ensure that our vote is casted correctly]." This opinion echoed the lack of trust which Ms. Taseff discussed.

But concern over the voting process is not the only anxiety which is plaguing voters currently. Dr. Allison Conner, a cognitive behavioral psychologist with a private practice in New York City, explained how she has seen an increase in anxiety of her patients tied to combinations of the election and economy. "People often can feel simultaneously empowered and powerless when it comes to elections; because every vote counts but rarely does one vote decide an election."

Dr. Conner added that the economic crisis has become the main focus of many patients' anxieties and has even triggered former patients to resume therapy in order to give them a refresher on the cognitive-behavioral tools that help manage anxiety and stress. A recently released Yahoo-AP Poll shows that Dr. Conner's patients are far from the only ones worried about the current state of the U.S. economy.

According to the poll, which was released on Oct. 20th, only 15 percent of likely voters believe that the country is moving in the right direction; that is a decrease of over ten percent from the previous month. The poll also indicated that over half of the 2,000 people polled worried that they will have to put off retirement longer because their savings have diminished.

Also, one third of those polled are unsure about the security of their current employment, half do not believe they can keep up with their credit and mortgage payments, and seventy percent believe that their investments are losing value.

Dr. Conner added that the bombardment of the media does not help voters' anxieties either. She explained that it's not only covered 24 hours a day on television anymore, but on the Internet as well. Both candidates' campaigns, and their supporters, have utilized the World Wide Web like none of their predecessors have ever done. A web surfer can chat with a candidate on Twitter or befriend one on Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace; not to mention the thousands of blogs which have been created to support or dismantle a candidate's campaign.