Only 28% Of Millenials Plan To Vote In 2018

[bilby]

If you look at a country where voting is compulsory, that can give you an estimate of the proportion of 'conscientious objectors' - The Australian system provides for fines for non attendees, but (because the ballot is secret) cannot fine non voters who attend a polling place, but deliberately cast an invalid or blank ballot, so adding together the percentage of people who are fined and the percentage of invalid ballots (called 'informal' by the Electoral Commission) gives an approximate upper bound for the number.

In reality, there will be some people who are fined who would have voted but forgot, or arrived at a polling place after the close of the poll; And some informal ballots that were genuine attempts to vote that failed due to incompetence. And offsetting that are an undetectable number of valid votes where the voter simply numbers the boxes in order, without looking at which candidates that preferences - so called 'donkey votes'.

This crude estimated upper bound for the number of conscientious objectors was, in the 2016 Federal Election for the House of Representatives, 5% informal votes plus 9% failed to turn out - giving an estimated 15% maximum conscientious objector rate. That would imply a turnout in the absence of apathy of about 85%; or put another way, when it is mandatory to attend and take a ballot paper, 85% of people will cast a valid vote.

Compare that to the (high!) turnout at the 2016 US Presidential election of just 58%, and we can estimate that 'too lazy to vote' won about 27% of the electorate.

That's a big block of votes. And the maths suggests that at least two thirds of non voting is due to apathy, rather than principles.

 

[fromderinside]

A significant number of Americans don't know how to register to vote. Some states recognize this fact and register everybody on their 18th birthday then they mail ballots to these people so they can fill them out and drop them off at their local libraries or public offices. Still voter totals are well below any mandatory vote nations.

I attribute the above to piss poor civic education resulting from normal american fear of government dominance of public thought. Then again if one watches any of those late night on-the-street interviews one get the impression that americans are just plain dumb.

Is there any doubt in American political apathy? Any doubt at all? If you think not check yourself as among the stupid. Oh hell, I'll do it for you.

I'm going to suggest something radical. We should take a poll on election day. It turns out we have methods that are good enough to result in an effective 95% opinion rate. Use it to 'elect' people to office.

 

[Elixir]

Is there any doubt in American political apathy? Any doubt at all? If you think not check yourself as among the stupid. Oh hell, I'll do it for you.

Thanks for taking care of that for me, fromder. Too lazy to do it myself.
Seriously, I admit to having abstained from some midterm elections in the past.
Never again.

 

[Trausti]

 

[Elixir]

Pinning your hopes on the conservative rag Daily Wire?
What? FOX NEWS wasn't feeding your bias strongly enough?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Looks like as far as millenials go, the GOP is toast. Women support Democrats by a 47% margin. (Pew via Washington Post) Now if we can just get the little punks to show up at a voting booth instead of sitting on their butts.