The last time Steven Zisk voted, Ronald Reagan was running for president against Jimmy Carter. That election was held in 1980. Reagan won and Zisk hasn't voted since.

A Manhattan wine salesman, Zisk, 48, fits the profile of someone who is most likely to vote: He is educated, established, and has a vested interest in the success of our economy and political system. Yet Zisk doesn't vote, and he is not alone. Literally millions of eligible voters stay away from the polling booths during local, state and national elections.

Journalists, politicians, and campaign consultants build careers trying to figure out why people vote, what compels them to choose one candidate over another, and how they can get more voters out to the polls. After the 1996 presidential election, the Census Bureau began looking into those same questions. They discovered that people such as Zisk choose not to vote for reasons that have little or nothing to do with past or current scandals, campaign advertising tactics, or even the candidates themselves.

People such as Zisk often do not vote for lifestyle reasons. Lifestyles last longer than individual elections and therefore, the reasons that people gave for failing to vote in 1996 probably will have a bearing on other elections, such as the one held on Tuesday, November 3.

"The reason most often given by registered voters who did not vote in 1996 was that they couldn't find the time," explains Loretta Bass, a demographer and researcher with the Census Bureau's population division. "That probably reflects increased demands in the work place and in the home."

Time and convenience, two of the driving forces in the consumer marketplace today, apparently impact the political arena. Zisk, for example, said that he might vote again if registration were made more convenient. "I'm very bad about filling out forms and mailing them in," he says. The combination of a busy work schedule and the changes of address that come with career advancement can put voter registration out of the picture for many people.

Family responsibilities also a carry higher priority than voting: "We found that people with children were less likely than people without children to show up and register to vote," Bass observes. Bass is co-author of "Voting and Registration in the Election of November 1996," a Census Bureau report released in 1998.

The report finds about one in five (22 percent) of registered voters who didn't vote in 1996 said that they couldn't take time off from work or they were "too busy" to vote. The share of voters who gave this excuse is up significantly since 1980, when only 8 percent of eligible voters cited this conflict. The other major categories of excuses that the Census Bureau uncovered include:

• "Not interested," which was cited by 17 percent, is up from 11 percent in 1980.
• "Illness, disability or an emergency" prevented voting for 15 percent, which is down from 17 percent in 1980.
• "Don't like the candidates," a more understandable excuse was offered by 13 percent, down from 16 percent in 1980.
• Voters gave many other reasons that are too numerous to list, but the major areas of excuses include a lack of transportation, being out of town on election day, forgetting to vote, not wanting to stand on long lines at the polls, or "don't know/refused to answer."

The really tough issue facing future politicians is that voter participation in presidential elections has been decreasing along with voter registration. For example, the 1996 presidential election holds the dubious distinction of attracting the lowest turnout of registered voters--54 percent--since 1948, according to the Census Bureau. In 1964, almost seven in ten eligible adults voted. That share dipped to about 68 percent in 1968, to 63 percent in 1972, and to 59 percent in 1976 and 1980. Turnout increased to almost 60 percent in 1984, to 57 percent in 1988, and to slightly over 61 percent in 1992.

"Coinciding with the downward voting trend, registration, too, was down, with just 66 percent of the voting-age population reporting that they had registered," in 1996, the report notes. "This was the lowest registration rate in a presidential election year since the Census Bureau began collecting these data in 1968, when it was 74 percent."

Aside from the rigors of work and the daily family duties that keep people from voting, the Census Bureau finds that the likelihood of voter participation depends on several socioeconomic factors such as educational attainment, employment status, ethnicity/race and age.

Source: Census Bureau

For example, 1996 voter turnout was highest for whites (61 percent) followed by African Americans (53 percent), Asians and Pacific Islanders (45 percent) and Hispanics (44 percent). Women (60 percent) are slightly more likely to vote than men (57 percent).

Factors that indicate a person's "stake in society" also influence voter participation, according to the Census Bureau. Among people who have lived at their current address for less than a month, only 31 percent voted in 1996, compared to 54 percent who have been in their residence for one to two years, and 70 percent of those who have been in their residence for five years or more.

Just 42 percent of unemployed people voted, compared to 59 percent of people with jobs. Similarly, voter participation steadily increased from 38 percent of people whose annual family incomes were less than $10,000 to 76 percent of those whose annual family incomes were $75,000 and above.

Educational attainment also has a strong influence on voter participation: About 39 percent of those with less than a high school education voted in 1996, compared with 52 percent of those with high school degrees, 63 percent with some college or an Associate's degree, 74 percent of those with Bachelor's degrees and 83 percent of people with advanced degrees, the Census Bureau reports.

Source: Census Bureau

Age is a very strong determinant of voter participation and it strongly suggests that voter participation will turn around as a greater share of America's population is aged 55 years and older. "Youngest voters had the lowest voter turnout of any group," Bass notes. "They are in college or are not homeowners yet. Younger people are not as established, not as invested in society and not invested in the outcome of the elections."

In 1996, 32 percent of people aged 18 and 19 years voted. Voter participation consistently increased with age to 45 percent of those aged 25 to 29 years, 60 percent of those aged 35 to 44 years, 71 percent of those aged 55 to 64 years, and 73 percent of people aged 65 to 74 years of age.

Getting people such as Steven Zisk to vote again may be easier said than done. The technology certainly exists for registering voters on the Wold Wide Web, but government moves on a geologic time frame compared with the private sector.

In the meantime, if politicians want more voters to turn out, they should forget the mud slinging campaigns and focus on locating babysitters for their constituents and convincing employers to give voters more time off from work.