As someone who analyzes election reform for a living, last weekend I decided to get off my usual soap box and interact with real voters. Through a new nonpartisan, nonprofit organization called Get in the Game, I volunteered to register people to vote at Yankee Stadium (as a fan, it seemed like it might be fun anyway). As I accosted people eating hot dogs and waiting for friends to arrive, I discovered how very real the problems in the system—the very ones I've been spouting about—can be for average people who want to participate in the elections process.

My first encounter was both heartwarming and heartbreaking. I approached a middle-aged couple sitting at what's called "the big bat." The husband was registered; the wife was not. "You know, you really should vote," he told her. So she tentatively, nervously even, agreed to fill out the form. She was almost 60 years old. She had never voted before. She filled out the registration application, looked up at me with wonder, and said, "That's it?"

"That's it," I told her, adding that she would receive a letter in the mail from her local Board of Elections telling her the location of her polling site. "I always thought it was so hard," she said, "I had no idea."

I wondered why she had no idea it was so easy. Had she never seen a voter registration form before? Clearly she had not. How could you go through your whole life and never be offered a voter registration form? What does that say about how we undertake the registration of voters in this country?

Another would-be voter presented me with a real life example of something I've been writing about a great deal lately—the problems presented by the new voter identification requirement. I helped to register a young man who had lived in California for several years but had recently returned to New Jersey and wanted to be able to vote in his home state. But I began to learn that his getting into the voting booth would not be as simple as filling out the form I handed him. Under the new law, it was possible that his registration application would be considered a "mail-in" form, requiring him to present identification when going to the polls. Such identification must be "a current and valid photo identification" or "a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the voter."

But he had no such ID. His license was still a California license, and all of his other identification still had the California address too. His bills were in his parents' names and he had no identification that I could be sure would be accepted. He promised me he would change his driver's license in time for the election.

My final encounter was the most disturbing of all. While I was badgering a crowd of people, a young man motioned to me and said quietly, "Can I ask you a question? If you have committed a felony, can you register to vote?" I told him that yes, in New York if he had completed his sentence he gets his voting rights back. "But my probation officer told me I would never be able to vote again," he said. After holding back my own outrage that he had been misinformed by someone who should know better, I told him this was flat out wrong and counseled him about what action to take.

I'm not sure how many volunteers would be able to give him the correct answer and wonder how many probation officers out there are giving out such flagrantly wrong information. It's a worrisome example of how New York is not fulfilling its obligation to ensure that ex-felons have their voting rights restored in a state where the law says they must be. But it was profoundly disturbing to see the problem personified by a man who—unlike so many other Americans—really wanted to vote.

Which brings me to the last lesson I learned. Even with the intensity of this year's elections, there are a ton of people who really don't care. Sure, I'd read all of the literature about voter apathy, but seeing it live really brought it home. I approached a great many people who told me no, they were not registered to vote, and when I asked them if they wanted to do so, they said no. I tried to walk away at that point, but in many instances these people volunteered their reasons: they didn't care —period; it wouldn't make a difference; and all politicians are [fill in expletive]. And yes, a lot of these people were young.

Yankee Stadium has always been a playground for me, but on this sunny afternoon it was a classroom. I was able to see the connection between the problems I had been writing and speaking about with the people they were affecting. At the same time, I was distressed to see how much more work needs to be done—not only in fixing the administrative obstacles that clearly still pervade the system, but in changing the way Americans, especially young Americans, feel about democracy and politics.

I'm a big-time baseball fan. Yet I had to wonder how many of my fellow fans at Yankee Stadium on Sunday had voted for Derek Jeter to be on the all-star team but will not be voting for president of the United States in November.

Tova Andrea Wang is a program officer and Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation.