I’ll tell you why I didn’t used to vote. I worked too many hours and was emotionally exhausted all of the time. I didn’t have hobbies or interests or energy to do anything else. My personal life was a complete mess. I didn’t have friends or relationships either. I ate poorly and didn’t exercise. All I literally did was work. I suspect a lot of people were in my shoes.
The bullshit requirement for the vote to be on a Tuesday.
Vote should be on a weekend.
It should be national election week, not election day
My state allows for mail in voting. My problem was that I was always stuck in survival mode. I couldn’t take care of my basic needs, there was no room for civic duties. It’s like I was in a trance. The problem is having to work too many hours, plus commute.
They do. That’s why voter suppression is such a big factor in every election.
You’re asking why the politicians don’t reach out to the 34%. Meanwhile for the past 10 years politicians have been ranting about dead people voting. A statistic that is blatently false, and has NEVER shown any significant amount of votes coming from dead people. They did find some confusion when old people voted early by mail, but died before election day. But those numbers were a rounding error at best.
So maybe these politicians are thinking “Well we can’t reach the non-voters because they’re dead!”
And then they go on fox news and argue about frogs being gay, or whatever bullshit to distract from actual issues.
Meanwhile, Trump won with only 28% of registered voters. The GOP is the minority, our political/voting system is by design.
What do you mean “cling to the idea they can’t be reached?” A huge portion of political spending goes towards trying to increase turnout (of the people likely to vote for you).
Because that would require a lot of work, and 99.99% of politicians are in it for the power and money. Not to actually help their constituents.
I guess that’s fair and they know they’re never going to be able to make good on the promises they make so those voters will only become entrenched and disaffected.
Because one party doesn’t want them to vote and voter supression campaigns have become extremely powerful. And it goes beyond the beurocratic tactics like voter IDs. Apathy, cynicism, and distrust are also part of the right-wing propaganda. Opposition parties fight an uphill battle to engage more voters.
Because that group likely thinks both options are terrible and think it’s a pointless waste of time
Ultimately proven correct
Self fulfilling prophecy.
Most non-voters don’t hold significantly different beliefs than the voting population. In non-competitive states, it means motivating them to vote is unlikely to tip the scales. Why bother tipping the results from 60% to 55% by spending millions on it? Better to allocate those funds to a 53% to 48% potential flip.
In battleground states they do try to reach these people.
I don’t think that your assumptions are true. Non-voters tend to be more progressive than voters, because conservatives vote religiously out of a sense of duty and responsibility, and progressives vote when they feel like it.
This is a lever that moves in two directions. Voter suppression is a very real thing that happens in every American election. It’s practiced by conservative candidates for exactly the asymmetry I mention above.
I mean, non-voters aren’t much more progressive really. They’re more likely to be independents (in the US at least). See:
They do skew a bit more D, but not massively so. They’re also largely non-white, less well educated and poorer. It’s a bit of a toss-up whether any of those demographics skew R or D.
I don’t really see much evidence that they’re more progressive, more centrist at best really. Although I suppose if you flatten political beliefs on a 1-dimensional axis, that does mean more progressive on average.
Do note that this differs per state, and voter turnout is also correlated with general results skewing harder in a certain direction. Complexities all around!
Because every time is someone’s first time, and due to voter registration being necessary a zillion years before the actual vote, no one specifies that and runs "VOTE ON NOV NTH " ads a week before the election day.
