Comment by rchaud 14 hours ago
The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.
63.9% per https://www.cfr.org/article/2024-election-numbers Which apparently was quite high. Only 3 presidential elections in the past 100 years exceeded 63%: 1960, 2020, and 2024.
Correction: those that don't enter a polling station. What you do in there is up to you. You can cast a vote, spoil the ballot, cast a "donkey vote" (numbering the options in the order printed), leave the ballot empty, as long as it goes in the box.
There’s also no evidence that increased turnout would have had the same result.
What seems to be overlooked in these conversations is the skill with which American voters have been disenfranchised by partisan forces.
It’s easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many Americans.
<< It’s easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many Americans.
I hesitated while reading this part, because I wholly agreed with the first 2 sentences. Do you mean physically difficult in terms of barriers to voting or making a less direct comment about the usefulness of that vote? If the former, I think I disagree compared to other countries ( and the levels of paperwork needed ). If the latter, I would be interested to hear some specifics.
I willing to give you moving polling locations, but with that minor concession.
Can you explain to me like I am 5 why those are bad things? For a simple person like myself, one would think, data accuracy, voting system integrity, and verifiability would be of use and value to everyone.
That an enormous sample size. Statistically a complete participation should be very close, so the burden of proof lies with those who claim it would be different. Regardless of whether Trump would have won or not, that is a clear indication of evenly split public sentiment. So we still get to justly reap the fruits of our collective choices. There is no exoneration by whimsically dreaming of improbable alternatives.
I don't think it is was that hard to vote. That is a straw man to avoid facing the hard truth of American apathy. Now next election, perhaps we can have a conversation on that point. Things a trending rather poorly right now.
I did not say 'is', I said 'was'. I have not seen studies or even many anecdotal stories indicating people think it was too hard for they themselves to vote. I have seen a lot of people saying that about other people, but as of 2024, attempts to disenfranchise voters had not been very well done. I also don't think having ID is a high bar, which is what a large amount of the noise has been about. Many, many democratic countries have this requirement [1]. Coupled with other things it can become a problem, but when anybody says voter id itself is a problem, I can't take them very seriously.
I however repeat, that was last year. Things could very well take a dramatic turn for the worse.
The electorate self-selected into voters and non-voters, it wasn't a random sample. Some chose to go to the polls and some chose to stay at home. Voter preferences don't say a lot about the preferences of non-voters, who've already shown they choose differently.
It shouldn't be that hard for you to show some evidence things would be different then. There is nothing indicating a stronger preference to vote has anything at all to do with which direction you lean. More and less does not equal right and left, so the burden of proof is on those who claim it is relevant. Yet polling indicates things would have gone pretty much just as they went.
In fact there was an extensive analysis of the election by Democrat pollster David Shor, who found that 100% turnout would have resulted in an even larger Trump win, by 4.8 points: https://www.vox.com/politics/403364/tik-tok-young-voters-202...
This has been the pattern for awhile now. The pool of politically unengaged people are especially Trumpy compared to regular voters: https://abcnews.go.com/538/vote-back-trump/story?id=10909062...
Arguments based on voter participation overlook that voting is a statistical sample of the population. The people who don’t vote broadly break down roughly the same way as the people who do vote. And even to the extent they don’t, it’s risky to make assumptions about how they would have voted.
If you can generalize about non-voters, it’s that they’re broadly more anti-institution than voters—which is what causes them to put less stock in the institutional practice of voting. In the U.S. in the Trump era, that has meant that non-voters or infrequent voters support Trump somewhat more strongly than regular voters.
For reference, informal votes were around 5% in our last federal election:
https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/website/HouseInformalByStat...
This article contains a fun breakdown of the types of informal votes including a category for "the usual anatomical drawings" (0.7% of informal votes):
https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/04/22/2025-federal-election-p...
See my sibling comment. Getting your name checked off is compulsory but nothing stops you from handing in a blank ballot.
"I don't like any of the rat-bastards." "I don't care." "I think it's funnier to draw a dick. (And I don't care.)" "I trust other people to make the right choice." "I refuse to participate in this bourgeois sham election." ...are all reasons I've heard, even if I don't actually understand any of them.
> The majority that did vote, voted for this
Nitpick: Trump got less than 50% of the votes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...)
More importantly, I think quite a few who voted for Trump didn’t vote for this extreme version of Trump.
Everybody votes in Australia (not sure how rich, but in top 20 for sure). If you don't you have to show cause or pay a AUD$50 fine. I know some think this is anti-freedom, but it does prevent farces like the current USA. Historically there have been problems in the past (30 years ago) but these days the Australian Electoral Commission (Independent from government) revise electoral boundaries to ensure no more gerrymanders.