I would love to see an America where 80-90% of the citizens make it to the polls. 2020 was the highest turnout ever and even then it was only 67% iirc.
I'm hoping for 80% and I think it might happen. 90% I don't even think I can compute that lol.
Unfortunately one of the downsides of living in a free society means people are free to be apathetic, civically illiterate, and lazy. Maybe the JLVRA should have an amendment added making it illegal not to vote.
Here in Australia we have mandatory voting, and we routinely hit 90%+! and thats in a country with vast outback country with incredibly remote people. (Australia is the size of the USA but only has 25 million people... I cannot understate the vastness of our land) Our last election in 2022 was the first since 1922 to be lower than 90%.. and it still did 89.22%.
Because its a legal obligation, we have an independent electoral commission which makes voting as accessible and easy as they can, from running polling on Saturday, to offering prepoll and postal votes, to even running remote teams that drive 100s of kms to remote outback stations to allow the 30 people that live there to vote. They even run a polling station in Antarctica for the scientists stationed out there. I've volunteered for the AEC before and it's genuinely amazing to see the work folks do every election.
America really needs to implement the same system, that way everyone has their vote counted, and politics becomes less divisive because politicians need to win a majority of their constituents, not just those whom vote.
America really needs to implement the same system, that way everyone has their vote counted, and politics becomes less divisive because politicians need to win a majority of their constituents, not just those whom vote.
Sadly, that's exactly why it won't happen, because the right wing relies on gerrymandering, voter suppression, and general fuckery to maintain their hold on power since the more people that vote, the more power they lose.
One party, one people, comrade. Workers of the world, unite!
In your investigations don’t look for documents and pieces of evidence about what the defendant has done, whether in deed or in speaking or acting against Soviet authority. The first question you should ask him is what class he comes from, what are his roots, his education, his training, and his occupation. These questions define the fate of the accused. Follow this, comrade, and you will have your eutopia.
I'd genuinely be very surprised if we get anywhere close to 2020 voter participation levels. I'd love to be really wrong. But 2020 was a bit of an anomaly due to COVID and people being stuck at home.
You'd need to change laws to get to or surpass 80%. The cleverest thing Democrats could do is pass a mandatory voter ID, everyone is automatically registered and no possibility of fraud, foreigners voting, duplicate voting, etc. Isn't that what Republicans wanted? And watch them try to oppose it. "Not like this!"
I mean the way the electoral college is setup, it disenfranchises millions of voters. Why vote in California when you know it's going to be blue? You have less representation than every other state does too. Your vote literally matters less even if you do vote. Hard to convince people every vote matters when the system is explicitly setup so that some people's votes matter up to 10x as much
You can't change the system if you don't vote to elect a government to change the system. Also, the popular vote being in favor, again and again, of a candidate who supports electoral reform is absolutely necessary to incentivizing people to fight for that change.
Or, instead of criminalizing yet another thing, we could try using carrots instead of sticks for once and do things that make people's lives easier like making voting day a paid holiday, but that will never happen, because there will always be one side that's happy with people continuing to be complacent.
I agree but if the response to this is to give up, that's apathy. If you're being discouraged and disenfranchised the response should be to do any and everything to vote, not give in and give up.
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u/Squatchshrooms 6d ago
I can't help but wonder how much is because of her endorsement and how much is because of the debate.