Forgive the Taylor Swift references. I have teen girls.
An interesting analysis of early voting patterns published by 538 this morning.
It appears that instituting early voting - contrary to earlier belief - doesn’t actually boost voter participation. Instead it moves existing participation from election day to earlier. Analysis of Ohio voters - where they’ve had early voting since 2005 - indicates that what boosts turnout is not early voting but the present of competitive, high profile races at the top of the ticket.
So, what’s it all mean? There have certainly been high profile fights about early voting at the state level. But are they all for naught? I’ve always been of the opinion that making it easier for people to vote is manifestly a good thing and that barriers should be removed. But if it’s not actually impacting voting patterns what would?
I too am all for making voting easier but short of making voting mandatory, I don’t know how to get more people engaged who aren’t already engaged. I’m assuming someone sometime has done a survey of non-voters to find out why they don’t vote and what would encourage them to do so but I suspect the answers boil down to “I don’t wanna” and “Pay me”. And nobody’s going to support that idea (not even me).
I’m unaware of any serious ‘why didn’t you vote’ research that doesn’t boil down to ‘I don’t care’. And that’s a hard thing to overcome. Early voting, moving E-Day to Saturday, whatever. None of that will get people to the polls if they don’t give a damn.
Other countries have voter participating rates. The Canadians vote bettwen 61-68% in their federal elections. The UK is between 59 and 65%. In the US it floats between 40-60%. So our highest is the bottom of other countries range. And some others? Lord above.
On the other hand, IIRC, the states where all voting is by mail have significantly higher voter participation than average. But then, there might be a reversal of cause and effect, here: It might be that people in those states, for cultural reasons, place a higher than usual value on high voter turnout, and that cultural value leads to both higher turnout and measures which are believed to increase turnout (regardless of whether they actually work).
Yeah, but voter turnout is high in Europe because of Voteman. I mean I’m not European and he terrifies me!! Note, this video is not even remotely safe for work. Like not a little. But it is awfully awesome.
I think I’ve voted twice… Once because it was the first time i could.
Once because I wanted to be part of electing the first black guy.
I haven’t voted the rest of the time because Dems and republicans don’t represent me and going to vote otherwise is just wasting my time.
I’d turn up for sure if we had second choice voting. I could cast in my lot on third party candidates who might have a chance and yet still at least have it count toward whichever lesser of two evils i picked as second choice.
Since 50% of the people pay no federal taxes ( I’m too lazy to look up the exact number ), this wouldn’t help the Democrats. Are you still for the idea now?
If you care about the integrity of the election, voter ID should be mandatory, and up the fines and possible jail time for election fraud.
Doesn’t Australia have mandatory voting? I wonder how that changed things for their elections, and if it favored one party or another when it was first instituted.
I don’t think we’ve ever not had compulsory voting … which is really “compulsory turning up to the booth to get your name ticked off”. So - hard to tell.
We vote on a Saturday too. I recommend it. But the Australian institution you might most easily copy is the democracy sausage
Or, yanno, people feeders with M&Ms inside. That could work too.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen studies arguing that it favored Labor.
Edit: This one (PDF): “A difference-in-difference analysis shows that compulsory voting caused a 24 percentage point increase in voter turnout and a 7–10 percentage point increase in the vote shares and seat shares of the Labor Party.”
When I’ve seen the tax stuff proposed, it’s usually proposed as a refundable tax credit. I’m not sure how well that would actually work since I’m not sure non-voters are diligently thinking about how they can impact their next tax return (people generally are not good at delayed gratification), but it would hit everyone regardless of what federal income tax bracket they’re in.
God, I love Australians. “Sausage sizzle”? Just the name is awesome.
And things like this happen at the local level. I certainly know city-level politicians who have held cook outs on E-day, gotten people all fat and happy on meat and beer and then bussed them to the polls. It’s not as cool as federally encouraged ‘come to the polling place and get free food’ but the impact is the same.
You do realize that number includes the retired who paid all their lives and active military who are not making enough to pay yet are serving the country?
On top of that are the working poor who are not the freeloaders you’re implying.
How about a cite for your claim about higher voter fraud?
I seriously question your political acumen if you seriously think third party candidates are realistic choices. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein were less competent than even Donald Trump was.
You don’t have like the two party system, but it’s the system we’ve got.
Answering the query.
Shorten the campaign time. All primaries after Memorial day and before Labor day. No election committees before say March first. IMO many people are burned out hearing about it by the time the election day comes around. We don’t vote for over 20 months yet and how much of the news cycle is already about people with official campaigns started.