THE ELECTORATE;`Party of Nonvoters' Keeps Growing Series: CAMPAIGN '90; AN UNCERTAIN SEASON Series Number: OCC.
Shirley Belmont is every incumbent politician's worst nightmare. A retired waitress from Huntsville, Ala., she says of Tuesday's election: "I'd love to kick the whole darn crew out."</br></br>She's also every incumbent's insurance policy: On Election Day, she doesn't plan to get near a voting booth. "It won't make no difference," she said. "Whoever you put in there is going to be a crook to begin with, so why bother?"</br></br>Belmont belongs to the only growing party in American politics-the "party of nonvoters," as political scientist Walter Dean Burnham has dubbed it. She's one of an estimated 115 million adult Americans who won't bother to cast a ballot on Tuesday-the most ever in a federal election, and roughly double the expected number of voters.</br></br>Voting has been in decline for 30 years, a slide that has persisted through war and peace, economic booms and busts, periods of contentment with politicians and spells of anger. While there is some speculation that the current sour mood may swell the ranks of protest voters on Tuesday, many political scientists think Belmont's reaction will be more typical.</br></br>"My guess is that voters will treat their disgust with politicians as a further excuse not to participate," said Benjamin Barber, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. "It becomes a rationalization for disempowerment. I suspect we're going to find out again on Tuesday that the American people's bark is worse than their bite." "There are certainly enough new issues out there to grab public attention and propel turnout upward," said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. Gans cited the Persian Gulf, fears of a recession, rising oil prices, the savings and loan fiasco and the heightened stakes over abortion. But, he continued, "warring against" the prospect of higher turnouts are the decline in competitive races, the failure of the political parties to draw "clear lines of debate," and the heavy use of campaign advertising that traffics in "character assassination" and is designed to depress turnout.