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).
Could make it mandatory like Australia.
Of course, many in the political space are trying to limit voting, so…
Americans would cry about mandatory voting. World’s biggest snowflakes, I’m sure if that was proposed they’d just say "ugh but the constitution, freedom and stuff, stupid libs "
I don’t think it will ever even happen because the winning party may just always think, “Good, don’t vote; that allowed us to win more easily.”
In the before times when we still had the rule of law, mandatory voting would almost certainly require an amendment to the constitution or else the Supreme Court would block it. Under current precedents the government generally can’t compel political speech.
Literally saw some loser bragging about “his right to not vote” the other day. Every single one of these people is a fucking tool.
Personally I think mandatory voting is a bad idea. It will not make then suddenly care, they will just vote for lolrolfcopter party.
The US does a lot of bad things around voting, but it being on a workday is probably the biggest hurdle. Most other countries have it on a weekend or holiday. That means that most people can go vote and not have to chose between potentially getting fired and vote. Which, to no surprise mostly affects lower income voters.
Also combined with the witch hunt on mail in voting makes it very hard for lower income people to vote. Which is by design.
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.
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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.
I’m a waiter, that one Saturday could be 25% of my monthly income. It should be a national holiday
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.
Trump: Yeah, we need more proof, come in to vote, bring two live references with an additional reference to vouge for them, all with passports, birth certificates and I need the number of the closest living relative to the doctor that delivered you.
and no lamination!
It should be national election week, not election day
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.
There is actually some evidence that musk was unfortunately successful at reaching some of these people. There was a lot of talk about “strange” ballots that only voted for Trump and nothing else, usually called “bullet ballots.” Well apparently part of musks outreach plan was getting to low propensity voters and telling them “don’t worry if it’s confusing, don’t worry about knowing the candidates, the only thing we need is a vote for Trump and he’ll fix everything.”
It seems like it worked out for them… :(
The bullet ballots were such a statistical anomaly. They should have been investigated/double checked.
They do. That’s why voter suppression is such a big factor in every election.
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!
less people voting helps conservatives, thats why they use disenfranchisement, voter suppression and gerrymandering in the states, plus the all the propaganda “your vote doesnt matter” is drilled into peoples heads.
voter suppression is designed to discourage voting as well.
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.
Being as they don’t vote, they are technically not voters.
As others have said, this seems like an ill-formed question. Do you have reason to believe that politicians “cling to the idea that these voters can’t be reached”?
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.
maybe they just consider those people successfully suppressed
They need to just put voting in with taxes. Everyone files taxes and if they aren’t at least filing them, then they shouldn’t vote. Setting up in person poling is expensive and takes a ton of volunteering and is so rushed to count it costs more to administer securely. The IRS is already solid at record keeping and the infrastructure for data collection is there. Plus, it would kill the horse race aspect of things if the votes were all tallied as they go. I think it would make the whole system easier and would help with any voter verification issues. No one is filing taxes in duplicate to vote more than once. Lol
But voting should be secret and confidential. Plus, how do you ensure someone isn’t voting on someone else’s behalf?
If you make less than $11,600 in 2024 you don’t file taxes because there’s no federal tax on that. So yeah, take away peoples voting rights because they’re poor. Great fucking idea, so progressive.
I thought you still had to file regardless, even if you aren’t paying anything. I filed when I was in college made under that limit working part time. Got money refunded from my taxes paid because I was below the poverty line.
If you worked a job that withheld taxes but you still didn’t make the minimum then you would absolutely want to still file because you would get 100% of that back and have the original amount your employer would have paid you. They can only refund you if you already gave them money.
If you’re self employed/gig work/contactor and don’t make more than the minimum you don’t need to file because you don’t have to pay tax. Assuming you didn’t have any other liability such as capital gains or sales taxes.
