Who Makes Up The Majority of Non Voters? POLL

[detrius]

Broken poll as can only select 3 items.

And no pie.

 

[Kara Spengler]

We had that 'problem' under FPTP, but now we have MMP, no excuse not to vote.

A lot of people in the us do not seem to understand how the electoral college works. Where I live, DC, the city is heavily democratic. The next party is probably the Statehood Greens, not the republicans. In 2016 donnie got 4.9 percent here, which meant 0 electoral votes for it. Yet some dems wanted to spend lots of time in 2016 getting me to vote for shillary and never got to the battleground states. So, yes, I blame them for who we have here now and will tell them to just fuck off this year as maybe that will get them to move on faster.

 

[Cristalle]

Unless you own the means of production, unless you're independantly wealthy ...you're working class.

The idea that "in their daily lives it more likely than not doesn't matter who's at the helm" (yes, I'm paraphrasing) is obnoxiously patronizing.

For the people needing bankrupty protection, better (any!) regulation of the payday loan industry, police defunding, college loan reform, etc ...who is at the helm is of utmost importance.

Ok, maybe not in this election (since neither asshole is likely to improve any of those issues); but as a rule yes they are very much effected.

Locally? It's always important to vote, and to participate -even if I understand the frustration driving some folks who don't, that doesn't change the fact that it matters.

They absolutely should vote locally, since who's on the school board and their city/county boards will matter more. But the conundrum is that most people don't pay a whole lot of attention to local races. Our primary just went last week and my county had a whopping 26% turnout! Wooo! Democracy! I'm not saying that they SHOULDN'T vote. I'm just saying that the people in the media driving people to vote are not really doing it for the local elections, they're doing it for the national elections and at the national level it really doesn't seem to matter who wins. Red placeholder, blue placeholder, what changes?

But you think it's patronizing? Let's get past the label and look at the facts. Under Obama the minimum wage didn't go up. He didn't advocate for it, much less fight for it. It sure as hell didn't go up under Trump.

Okay, we got the (right wing) ACA plan. That is notoriously problematic since it's not really affordable for a lot of people, since even with the subsidy the deductibles are high; a lot of people STILL didn't get Medicaid; and if they had Medicaid it didn't make a difference. Where's the difference?

Bankruptcy protection - *blurts out laughing* We just nominated the guy who wrote the bill to make it harder to declare bankruptcy!!!

Regulation of payday lending... Debbie Wasserman Schultz of FL-23 backs the payday lenders! They bankroll her campaign. They bankroll quite a bit of people on both sides. She just rolled through her primary with 78% of the vote.

Police defunding - not going to happen except in rare cases of ultra liberal spaces like Seattle. Biden wants to throw more money at the police!

College loan reform? Yes, that's the first potential real plus, but do I really think that they're going to fight for that when "the pantry is dry"? Yeah, sorry, but I have zero confidence about that.

Band-aids over bullet holes is all we are going to get, when we have a mortgage and rent apocalypse that could put 20% of this country on the street. But that's what we get when we think small and don't demand that our representatives actually represent us.

 

[Cristalle]

Nobody is calling them idiots. The people you're white-knighting are, statistically, not the majority of non-voters.

You liked this:

I think it's already been well established in research that the majority are idiots who are just willfully ignorant of what's going on and are mostly apolitical. A smaller number are fanatics who have very particular beliefs, but think voting is pointless.

For example, I didn't vote when I was a crazy libertarian, but have grown out of that...

 

[Cristalle]

Here is a more useful discussion about this subject:

Half of Americans Don’t Vote. What Are They Thinking?

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Those who are aware that voting as a "right" is what led to how things are as screwed up as they are now.

Example: Trump is in office because people who fall for "look at me, I will make everything better because look at me" have the "right" to vote.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Band-aids over bullet holes is all we are going to get,

The alternative is more bulletholes.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

You liked this:

you highlighted the word that suits your purpose, but I was clearly not calling political fanatics stupid. Fanatics are often very intelligent... whether or not they are sane is another matter. But most non voters are apolitical, and apolitical people are less intelligent on average.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

I vote even knowing my vote does not matter, simply because too many people have fought so that -I- right now can vote. And its not a matter of Right to Vote, but Responsibility to Vote.

Besides, -they- don't want us voting, so definitely will, just to spite them.

 

[Monica Dream]

But most non voters are apolitical, and apolitical people are less intelligent on average.

I'd disagree with that, strongly. That's like saying people who aren't into sports are less intelligent, or people who aren't religious aren't intelligent, etc etc etc

Civil engagement is no substitution for an IQ test.

 

[Cristalle]

you highlighted the word that suits your purpose, but I was clearly not calling political fanatics stupid. Fanatics are often very intelligent... whether or not they are sane is another matter. But most non voters are apolitical, and apolitical people are less intelligent on average.

We are talking about non-voters and you very clearly said that the majority are idiots, and that a smaller number were fanatics.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I'd disagree with that, strongly. That's like saying people who aren't into sports are less intelligent, or people who aren't religious aren't intelligent, etc etc etc

Civil engagement is no substitution for an IQ test.

Not at all valid comparisons. And yes, people who don't vote on average are less intelligent. That's not something I made up:

Smarter People More Likely to Vote, Scientists Say

Note that I am NOT saying non voters are all unintelligent... I was just talking about averages.

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Not at all valid comparisons. And yes, people who don't vote on average are less intelligent. That's not something I made up:

Smarter People More Likely to Vote, Scientists Say

Note that I am NOT saying non voters are all unintelligent... I was just talking about averages.

Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Not at all valid comparisons. And yes, people who don't vote on average are less intelligent. That's not something I made up:

Smarter People More Likely to Vote, Scientists Say

Note that I am NOT saying non voters are all unintelligent... I was just talking about averages.

I'm going to argue this. My spouse is very smart - he also got a degree in International Affairs, so has a decent background in Politics. Its only because of me he votes, because otherwise I'll give him hell.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I'm going to argue this. My spouse is very smart - he also got a degree in International Affairs, so has a decent background in Politics. Its only because of me he votes, because otherwise I'll give him hell.

Good for you for making him vote! ...but one anecdotal example doesn't refute a broad average. Some VERY smart people don't vote... but this thread was asking about the most common case...

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Good for you for making him vote! ...but one anecdotal example doesn't refute a broad average. Some VERY smart people don't vote... but this thread was asking about the most common case...

I think that study is confusing intelligence with education level, just saying.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

But most non voters are apolitical, and apolitical people are less intelligent on average.

Very likely, but are there many peer-reviewed studies to back up either of those assertions?

(And don't get me started on IQ tests).

 

[Cristalle]

Since it was ignored:

In the broadest terms, the study found the average chronic nonvoter is a married, nonreligious white woman between 56 and 73 who works full time but makes less than $50,000 a year. She is most likely to identify as a moderate, lean toward the Democratic Party, get her news from television and to have a very unfavorable impression of both political parties and President Donald Trump. She has a 77 percent chance of being registered to vote and says she doesn’t because she doesn’t like the candidates but claims to be certain she will vote in November. But the study’s real lesson is that averages are deceiving, concealing more than they reveal.

Nonvoters are an eclectic faction with distinctive blocs that support Democrats and Republicans—but don’t show up to cast their ballots—and an even larger group that is alienated from a political system it finds bewildering, corrupt, irrelevant or some combination thereof. These blocs are so large that when a campaign is able to motivate even a portion of one, it can swing an election, which may have been what allowed Trump to bust through the “blue wall” in the Great Lakes region in 2016 and Barack Obama to flip North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Indiana in 2008. What these blocs do in November could well decide the 2020 presidential election.

But how is the question.

The study confirms that nonvoters as a whole are fairly reflective of the broader electorate in terms of political preferences. If they were to all vote in November, 33 percent say they would support Democrats, 30 percent Republicans and 18 percent a third-party candidate. More surprisingly perhaps, and potentially more consequential for November, these numbers gently tilt in the opposite direction in many battleground states, with nonvoters choosing Trump over the as-yet-undetermined Democratic nominee 36%-28% in Pennsylvania, 34%-25% in Arizona and 30%-29% in New Hampshire. Wisconsin and Michigan mirror the national average, favoring the Democrat 33%-31% and 32%-31%, respectively, while in Georgia the margin is 34%-29%. This data challenges many long-standing assumptions of political experts.

Half of Americans Don’t Vote. What Are They Thinking?

 

[bubblesort]

Most non-voters are people who genuinely don't care. Sure, you have a few who can't get to the polls, or who don't vote to make a statement, but most of them just don't care. Why? They might not watch or read the news. They might be informed, yet apathetic. Ignorance and apathy are really hard to pin down to a simple demographic, or even a group of simple demographics. It's a human problem.

Not even all educated people believe in voting. An economics professor once told me a joke: Two economists run into each other at the polls, one says to the other "I won't tell anybody I saw you here if you don't tell anybody you saw me here." The point is, we don't really get much out of voting, on an individual level, except a sticker. Personally, I love stickers, so I vote anyway.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

That’s generally my thoughts as well. So it begs the question, to me anyway, who are all these “get out and vote” messages targeting? Dems hoping to pick up net new voters? Or convert those who voted Trump last time? If the later then should the message really be simply a reminder to vote?

I didn't see this option in the poll, though a couple were close. But I think the message is meant to target those would-be voters out there who don't believe their vote will matter one way or the other and so couldn't be bothered.