Did not vote includes a significant number of disenfranchised people who were denied the ability to vote through having the right to vote taken from them, voting suppression barriers such as lines that were 8+ hours long, removal from voter registries, bullshit ID requirements, and other malicious actions.
And the same people claiming to be victims of voter fraud are the ones perpetrating the election fraud.
Before the 2000 presidential election, Florida’s legislature ordered the removal of deceased registrants, and citizens with felony convictions from rolls – Florida imposes a lifetime voting ban on ex-felons. But it was later reported that at least 1,100 legitimate voters were mistakenly removed from the rolls, according to The New York Times, while some reports project thousands more legitimate voters than that number were prevented from casting a ballot. It is the 2000 election in which President George W. Bush won by a 537-vote margin in Florida.
The actual stolen election.
Democracy!
I remember when I tried to vote from abroad while living in Fiji and my mail ballot arrived after the election 😂
We reallyyyy need ranked choice voting
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You’re right! I, too, would love if that 40% actually voted, AND we need ranked choice voting.
Consider disenfranchised voters may be more likely to vote if they can vote for a candidate they actually like without it being a waste.
Clinton/Gore was the first election I was eligible to vote but I was not yet responsible enough to register and actually figure out voting. I never voted until W’s second term, I disliked him enough to finally vote and have not missed an election since.
TIL: there was a third group you could vote in the us.
So if voting matters so much in the presidential election, why in 2016 did Hillary get 29% of the vote yet lost, and Trump only got 28% but won?
Please, I’m genuinely not understanding but would really like to. Can someone please explain, like I’m 5, why my vote matters at all in the presidential election.
Depends on your state’s electoral college votes. In a way, if you’re in a state “safe” for a party your vote for the opposite is almost meaningless as your vote doesn’t count thanks to the EC being what actually counts in the national election. If you’re in a battleground state your vote is very important as a win in that state can shift which party gets the EC vote.
Populous states have more EC votes, however there are more states that have far, far less population that tend to overwhelm the EC votes of the populous states.
Say for instance California has 54 EC votes (pop ~40 mil); IN, NC, TN, MO have 48 EC votes in total and around 24 million in population combined. Let’s say the latter four are safe “red” states. Now along comes Ohio, a “battleground state” with 17 EC votes and population of 12 million. If Ohio republicans votes win the state, that means the EC votes total 65 for the republicans, a win for them with 36 million people total even though California has 40 million people who voted for the Dems. That’s how you get a minority of individual votes going to a party yet they still win the election.
This is really a simplified version and limited of what happens on a national scale. Some big states are populous and “safe” for one party or the other but tend to lean democrat, giving the Dems large EC votes, most less populous states vote Republican giving the republicans a nearly matching total. That’s why the votes in battleground states like Ohio are incredibly important as they can win or lose an election. It’s how the republicans can lose the popular vote yet still win the presidency.
IOW thanks to the electoral college less populous states can total more EC votes and win the election. If you live in a state that is solidly one party or the other your opposition vote means little. If you live in a battleground state your vote is incredibly important as we’ve seen that a minuscule percentage of votes can swing an election.
I don’t know if that was simple enough, but I hope it helped.
An important historical context for this I would like to add as well. There’s a chance I may be wrong about the specifics but this is my best understanding of it.
When this concept was developed during the constitutional convention. They wanted to protect “states rights”, which has always been a soft language for slavery. The Electoral College is in the same section of the constitution as the 3/5ths compromise, which said that slaves count as 3/5th of a person when being counted as population to have representatives/Electoral college votes.
So modern Republicans are benefiting and have more power than the general population actually voted for, based on a structure used to protect the institution of slavery. This is a key example of “institutional racism(*edit)” and helps me understand the obsession with things like critical race theory. Because understanding the structure, delegitmizes the power Republicans hold. The most obvious example to me right now is the Supreme Court. A mixture between the consequences of institutional racism and modern GOP political rat fuckery is doing so much harm to America.
I agree with why the EC was a popular compromise for southern slaveholding states, but I don’t know what advantage it offers today as they don’t have the slaves to add to their overall totals compared to the more populous northern states.
That’s not the worst one. In the 2000’s Bush straight up stole the election.
Because she barely lost in a few crucial states. It would have taken fewer than 80,000 nonvoters voting for her in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to flip the election.
While that’s actually a crazy low number of people, I’m not in one of those “swing” states. If my state’s electoral votes already go towards the party I want, what’s the motivation for me to vote? The possibility of my state flipping is there, but it seems unlikely. I’m asking because this exact question has been asked to me, and I honestly couldn’t find a better answer than, “you never know…”
It comes down to the tragedy of the commons. It’s unlikely to make a difference if one person does or doesn’t vote, but with a lot of people it can. Which state it is just changes how many people it takes.
I’m not from the US and don’t know much about your politics, please explain to me how the party with less votes can win.
The U.S. was founded by slavers, and in order to preserve the rights of white men to own slaves, they built several anti-democratic institutions into the constitution of the new country. Northern states had fewer slaves and more voters, while southern states has more people but most of them weren’t allowed to vote. A one-person one-vote system that included slaves would result in the end of slavery. A one-person one-vote system that excluded slaves would give most of the political power to the north, and would probably end slavery. So to make sure people could continue to be deprived of their humanity, the electoral college was invented.
All states were given votes in the college proportional to their population, with slaves counting as 3/5 of a person. This gave greater power to the plantation owning whites who were responsible for ratifying the constitution, and insured nothing short of a civil war could end their reign of terror.
After the civil war the electoral college remained, and continues to distort the popular vote.
I’m not from the US either, but I’ve seen enough to attempt answering this.
They have two voting systems
- popular vote
- electoral college vote
Popular vote is the easily corruptible people going out and voting after a long period of politicians lying their teeth off face to face.
Electoral college vote is a bunch of easily corruptible fuckwits who vote with whoever pays best, regardless of popular voting.
Electoral college vote seems to matter more than popular vote. Not sure how or why. So less popular candidates can win because fuck the people, I guess.
I don’t get the hate for non-voters. Mandatory voting is a dangerous practice due to the existence of the “donkey” vote.
Imagine if even 2/3s of the people who didn’t vote in 2020 just voted for DT because he was the current sitting president and they had no interest in voting but were forced into doing so.
The only people I’m really upset with are the ones who have a clear viewpoint and understanding of the circumstances but didn’t vote out of laziness or out of the belief that we’d win anyways. Those are the people that cost us 2016 and those are the ones that could potential cost us this election if they don’t get out there.
No, it didn’t. Not voting isn’t “against all” it’s “idgaf, even if the Nazi wins I’m cool with that”.
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Hey there, Mr. Glass Houseman.
Votes don’t magically give someone the power to rule you. The only thing that rules you is what you are willing or not willing to sacrifice. After you voted against Trump, and your team lost, did you put your body upon the gears and upon the wheels, did you stop the machine from working?
Or did you throw up your hands, donate a pittance to the party that lost? Did you wait patiently for four years for another chance, all the while being a well-oiled cog in the Orphan Crushing Machine with Trump now at the lead? If the people who didn’t vote caused Trump to be elected, then it must also be true that everyone who continued to cooperate with the government after January 20 are complicit in everything that Trump did while in office. Do you feel shame for all the fucked up shit you enabled?
wait wth are you even saying… if people who didn’t vote helped TFG to win, then people who did vote against him were complicit in what he did? wtf kind of logic is that?
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What a childish take.
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That’s so disappointing. As a citizen it is your right and duty to vote. You cannot complain about the state of your country if you didn’t vote, as you aren’t doing anything to change it
