Then there were others who were dislodged from political apathy by the prospect of casting a historic ballot for the first African-American president.
CNN: First-time voters look to Obama to restore American dream
But she cautioned that any analysis of political apathy needed to make clear that "people do get involved more in politics as they get older".
Just as political apathy perverts democracies, our refusal to analyze stocks turned the stock market into a bipolar maniac with the attention span of a goldfish.
Moreover, the fact that most people most of the time pay little attention to politics the phenomenon of political apathy helps interested minorities to protect their rights and to assert their interests.
Matt A. Barreto, an associate professor of political science at the University of Washington and head of Latino Decisions, said the population growth had produced a higher Latino vote in every presidential election over the last decade, a number that had the effect of masking the political apathy of many Latino voters.
New Yorkers rejected it this week by a two-to-one margin, but the idea is gathering support elsewhere as a possible cure for political ailments ranging from voter apathy to partisanship.
"If a political issue emerges to turn apathy into opposition, there is a real possibility that street demonstrations similar to those that occurred in the early days of the Lee Myung-bak administration could further hamper Park's ability to get things done, " Scott Snyder, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a blog posting Wednesday.
Far, again, from being models of devoted political participation, the town halls suffered from citizen apathy: in 18th-century Massachusetts, for example, attendance ranged from 20% to 60% of eligible voters.
However, commentators said registration was relatively low, reflecting the opposition calls for a boycott and apathy among Jordanians of Palestinian origin, who make up 60% of the population but have little political power.
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