The biggest obstacle to voting in 2020 will be the apathy of the American public, as always. The record turnout of 2018 was only 49% of eligible voters, and the largest turnout in a presidential election has not hit 60% since 1968. The biggest single voting bloc in the US is eligible voters who do not vote. That is what makes the tactics listed in this article effective, since the Republicans only have to nibble at the margins.
The worst records for turnout are among younger voters, with millennials turning out somewhere in the 30% range. These are the people we need to motivate, and I suspect that having 70 year olds dominating the political discourse and the primary process for the next year may not turn the trick.
For a huge chunk of the American public, politics is just something that happens in the background - like the weather. And with one party backed by billions of dollars dedicated night and day to making voting even harder, the immediate future of voter turnout seems destined to decline even more.
If having one political party openly trying to kill democracy in every which way they can does not stimulate people to rebuff them at the polls, I am not sure what can. Free beer?
Are GOP voters less affected by these efforts? I know non-whites are disproportionally targeted, but what about ex-felons or inactive voters or misinformed voters? Are they mostly Dems/moderates? Or is it because GOP specifically purge Dem voters?
Joe Biden will never appeal to the younger voters. I’m older and he hasn’t ever appealed to me. We need someone that has some ideas about where the country should go, is dynamic and can pulverize the Rethugs.
If you live in Florida, North Carolina, Michigan or Pennsylvania, I’m guessing voting. In any case, I’m betting that the pool of non-voting potential voters (people eligible to register and vote, but don’t) will exceed 100 million. If we contrast that with a more engaged democracy such as Sweden, that number would be about 30 million.
And then there is the (literal) elephant in the room. The nationwide injunction against the GOP using voter intimidation at polling places was lifted last year. This was caused by its conduct in having off-duty police officers, conspicuously displaying their badges, stand outside polling placed in New Jersey minority districts.
Fat Hitler is going to let there be an election in 2020?
Add Ridiculous Number Of Candidates to that list.
Disinformation on social media? Ha! A tiny drop in the bucket compared to Fox “News” and Reich Wing Hate Radio. (Studies have also identified that those most likely to be affected by BS on social media are old, white, Republican’t and were never going to vote for Democrats anyway.) No, kids, the biggest threat to our pseudo-Democracy is not the Russians. It is the very rich and the politicians that they own…
Apathy and a sense that nothing substantial will change regardless of who is elected. The rich will remain rich. The wars will roll on. And the planet will continue to bake,
Paraphrasing HRC: “Why are they not 50 points ahead, one might ask?”
He will let it happen, but claim massive voter fraud if he loses or if it’s even a close call. Whether or not he vacates office after that is a real question at this point.
This is actually the part that I’m least concerned with. Not that he won’t entertain the idea or try to pull this off. I just don’t think the secret service, metro police, military, or any other applicable law enforcement agency would let him get away with it.
Let us all not forget that Republicans have won the national popular vote in a presidential election once since 1992. Their ideology is not widely popular and rigging the system is the only way they can continue to hang on to power. Expect these efforts to just get more brazen.
We’re moving into the endgame.
Trump’s lawyers argued openly in court yesterday that the Legislative Branch has no oversight authority relating to the Executive Branch. This argument tries to establish that the presidency is an Imperial Office- above the law and not subject to any review.
The fact that they are making this assertion to the other supposed third of our system of government, the Judiciary, would be funny if the current stakes weren’t in fact the very life or death of American Democracy.
Given all the facts we have at hand the failure to Impeach Trump is a failure of the Democratic Party House leadership. Impeachment begins in the House. The necessary investigations and debate take place in the House. Regardless of Mitch McConnell’s corruption in what might take place in the Senate trial, there is more than enough rationale and evidence to proceed now.
I predict if Pelosi continues to refuse to Impeach Trump the GOP will re-take the House due to voter apathy and American Democracy as we believe it exists will die. And history has many models for what comes next.
Great article on voting as always.
Yet, the secretary of state there, John Merrill has sowed confusion about the requirements to register under the new law and has said he will not put any stats resources towards educating the newly eligible about their right to vote.
Typo for “state resources” maybe?
We need someone that has some ideas about where the country should go, is dynamic and can pulverize the Rethugs.
IMO, your opinion won[t be shared by the majority of the country. it’s going to be the opposite. Ideas about where the country should go v. pulverize Rump, the latter will win out.
Low turnout is not all about apathy. Systematic efforts to make registration more difficult, getting to the polls more difficult and elimination of polling places and hours is deeply unAmerican and these ought to be the real crimes. Voting in Presidential elections could be on a Sunday or be declared a holiday so people don’t feel they won’t have money to pay rent if they take time off from work to vote.
Okay, so it’s time for the Democratic nominees - all 3,000 of them - to start staking out positions, loud and clear on this most important of topics. Hear that, Joe? What will you do about these efforts? What will you do about cyber security for elections? Will you appoint (if possible) additional SC justices?
And ideas about where the country SHOULDN’T go. And I agree, he will be pulverized.
I hope you’re right… but you have to imagine the entirety of the Republican Party will also be behind him. It concerns me, but everything concerns me these days…