VOTER APATHY

Much has been made of voter registration in the past couple of years. There are some legislators and other elected government leaders who seem to take some special pride in promoting participatory democracy by registering more and more new voters.

Nationally, legislation dubbed the Motor Voter Bill pushed states to increase the number of opportunities for people to register to vote. Never mind that in most states there already were plenty of such opportunities. What has happened as a result of the federal legislation, however, is that many people who have never participated in the voting process -- and never intend to -- are signing up to vote because they don't want to jeopardize getting their welfare checks or some other service provided by government agencies charged with registering everybody who walks in the door.

At first, there were predictions that all of this would produce an increase in the number of people going to the polls. Sadly, just the opposite is true. Limited results from some local elections over the past several months show no increase in voter turnout. And this week's primary voting offered another example of how pushing registration has failed to spark any genuine interest in the process.

In Cape Girardeau County, only 20 percent of the registered voters -- whose rolls have been increased by the special, sometimes cumbersome registration process -- voted in Tuesday's election.

Statewide, the numbers were equally dismal. Just 22 percent of Missouri's voters went to the primary polls, far fewer than the 35 percent predicted by Secretary of State Bekki Cook.

More than that, the actual number of voters on Tuesday was the second lowest for a primary election since 1988 -- some 706,000. In the last presidential primary in 1992, more than 1.1 million Missourians voted.

In many instances, local issues are what bring out the voters. There were some interesting decisions to be made this time too, but voters didn't seen very interested in use taxes or bond limits for school districts. Issues like the school bonds, which passed overwhelmingly, in Jackson should have been a big draw for voters.

Philosophically, it can be argued that a low voter turnout isn't necessarily bad. Those who vote are the ones who appear to have a genuine interest in the election process and are most likely to be informed when they go to the polls. Motor Voters and other efforts are likely to fail because the emphasis is on signing up voters, not educating participants in the democratic process.