c/dataishorrifyinganddepressing
If it makes you feel any better, the trend looks like more people are voting as time goes on.
As crazy as it is, Donald Trump appears to have been the single largest motivator to vote in American history. Either him or Covid.
He has definitely motivated me to vote twice, and for the rest of my life I won’t miss an election. Seriously. I had voted before, but I’d sit it out if I was too busy or I didn’t particularly like either candidate.
I have happily voted for Mr. or Ms. Not Trump twice. Now I also have to vote for Mr or Ms Not Influenced by Trump every chance I get too.
George Floyd too. 2020 definitely felt like the boiling point for a lot of things that centered around Trump in a 100% divisive way.
I did a protest vote in 2016 (my state has zero impact), but from now on I want to make sure the numbers show accurately who got the most votes.
The government should partner with McDonald’s and offer a free double cheeseburger with proof of voting.
Election Day should be a national holiday to give folks a chance to vote.
No postage needed in California, nor Massachusetts if I recall correctly. Does your state really make you find a stamp to vote in 2024? That sucks, sorry to hear that.
I mean, at least put it on the weekend, like other countries (or at least mine).
Allow early in-person voting centres and postal votes. Make it convenient.
Though, maybe these are only widespread in mandatory voting counties (like mine), because you’d get massive complaints if it wasn’t convenient.
Turnout is unsurprisingly, very high here.
The government should pass a law that it’s required to vote, or give a reasonable explanation why you can’t. Employers are punished for keeping their employees from voting.
Hi, it’s me, Australia, you might remember me from such democratic innovations as the secret ballot and mandatory voting, America will never have mandatory voting because it works about as well as gun control, single payer health care, and the metric system.
Also many places have mandatory voting but very few enforce it, I would put money on America being one of those places if it somehow got a foothold.
That is.
It reminds me of a time I got arrested for giving a nice old lady a bottle of water while she was waiting in line to vote in Georgia and it became a big deal. I got charged, convicted and sentenced to prison time but luckily my friend Jerry Seinfeld springs Larry out of jail after he discovers a juror broke his sequester, causing a mistrial and the sentence being thrown out.
Counter-proposition: you get to choose - either you cast the vote, or you get the free burger.
I think the free burger would entice more people to vote than the threat of getting a burger if you don’t.
But you would remove people who would prefer burger to participating in democracy from the equation.
I would also like to see a similar graph for mid-term elections. Do the winners even get 10% of the eligible votes?
The percentages for 2016 only add up to 97, and the 40% bar is longer than the 41% of 2012.
Maybe 3% voted for a third party, and because they aren’t shown the other bars were expanded to fill the entire space
Also, sometimes it say “won” or lost" behind the candidates, sometimes there is an asterisk, but for many entries, there is no information who won and who lost?
I’ve never understood why there is a voting system where the one with most votes can lose.
They usually justify it by saying it’s to prevent the tyranny of the majority (two wolves and a sheep biting on dinner).
But a case could be made that it’s a way to keep the elite entrenched.
Kinda makes sense. Would make more if the number of terms were the limiting factor. Two and you’re out for life. Sement that, no alleviating factors.
Who knows, maybe they even have that in place already.
The founders were a gentleman’s club. Which is basically a fraternity. They made up rules that made sense to a bunch of frat boy farmers with enlightenment libraries.
I wouldn’t call them farmers. Partly because a variety of wealthy professions were represented and mostly because the ones who called themselves farmers didn’t do any farming, they forced enslaved people to farm for them.
