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  • Literally since the founding of the country we’ve never had 50% or more turnout. People who abstain from voting have been the majority in this country this whole time. If not voting fixed a broken system why isn’t it fixed if the majority already don’t vote?

    • Yes because its never been a democracy.

    • Do you ever think about the reasons why voter turnout is so low here? Consider, by comparison, Cuba, which has over 90% voter turnout. What is different there to here? Why do so many more people (percentage-wise) vote in Cuba than in the US?

      Instead of spending your time in here getting insulted (which is what is going to happen if you keep commenting in this thread), you might instead go research voting in Cuba. Try to answer for yourself why their voter turnout is so high. Then ask yourself if we here in the US can learn something from the way Cuba does politics.

      Or you can stay here and get dunked on. You do you.

      • Nice of you to acknowledge that I’m mostly being insulted and dunked on, but if that was going to stop me from commenting why would I even use Lemmy, or any social media?

        Voting in Cuba is pointless for national elections. It’s a one-party state so each candidate runs unopposed in their district. One-party states are bad. There is nothing the U.S. can learn from voting in Cuba, it is one of the least democratic countries in Latin America.

        Voter turnout has been 88% or better in Australia since 1925. Why didn’t you list them as an example? Voter turnout is good there because voters are fined a few hundred dollars for not voting. They have a mandatory voting law. That could increase voter turnout in the United States, but if it didn’t come with rules that employers must give their employees time to vote, and states must have fair standards for registering to vote, then it would just be fining poor people for being poor.

        Other things the United States could do to increase voter turnout: make Election Day on the weekend instead of a Tuesday, which was selected so farmers traveling by horse and buggy could get to the polls. We don’t have that many farmers anymore, much less ones that travel by horse and buggy. That’s really the only rule at the federal level on how states run elections, other rules to increase voter turnout would be implemented by individual states. Early voting, mail-in voting, the ability to register to vote when you’re interacting with a state office anyway, like when you get a driver’s license, or pay your taxes. Letting people vote after they’ve served their prison sentence. Letting people vote while serving their prison sentence. &c.

    • If I wanted to speak to a smug redditor, I'd go to reddit.

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