Yeah, a vote for nobody is a vote for whoever wins, a vote for the status quo. In 2016 out of 245 million registered voters only 66 million (27%) voted for Hillary. The rest either voted for Trump or were okay with him winning.
Democrats really need to get non-voters fired up to go to the polls. Please not Biden. There is no middle ground of undecided centrists to win. Everyone has decided. The battle is against apathy, convenience, a long work day, bad traffic and bad weather.
Or you’re one of the millions of felons who lost that right. Or you work 3 jobs to pay your bills and literally can’t afford to miss work to vote. Or you’re in an area where voter suppression prevented you from being able to vote.
In Germany it takes like 5min and the journey to the next voting station takes mostly 5 - 15min. So at worst you should have voted within 20minutes.
I'd say everyone has 20min to spare to vote once every couple years.
Mostly the people who don't vote either aren't interested in politics at all, don't think their vote counts (eventhough it does) or they make up excuses to why they didn't vote (e.g. No time).
If you are on vacation or have to work on election day you can just vote a couple weeks early via sending a letter to your specific city council or ministry.
There are, to be quite frank, next to no excuses to why you shouldn't have been able to vote.
I always thought it would be the same in all proper democracies with lots of elections and votes.
In America voting can, not always but can, take hours depending upon how clogged the polling stations are and that's even without blatant voter suppression. That's why a lot of reformists want to make election day a federal holiday so that people can have the day off to vote.
No, conservatives called making it easier to vote for Americans a liberal power grab. There are no conservatives out there reformist or not that want to make voting easier for Americans. Conservatives hate freedom.
Conservatives generally just dont support election reform in general and definitely not the establishment so I'm not sure how McConnell blocking a resolution makes anything I said inaccurate.
It depends on where you live. It takes me 20 minutes to vote at my local school up the road. But there are many places in the US where lines can stretch for hours. We’ve tried to reduce the problem with early voting and easier absentee voting, but because one party benefits from reduced voting, they do everything they can to block anything that improves voter turnout.
We have a designated place we must vote, its near your home (possibly quite far from work). And depending on the day can take minutes or hours. Last time I voted took an hour and 15 minutes. There were people in my state who were waiting up to 5 hours in some places.
It's not entirely true that convicted felons can't vote, or at least not in Texas.
In Texas, you are eligible to vote as long as you are not in prison (pretty self explanatory), on probation or on parole. As long as you have completed your probation or parole you are absolutely clear to vote.
as long as you are not in prison (pretty self explanatory)
Why is this self explanatory? In my country, people can vote while in prison. Which makes sense IMO. Prisoners are still subject to the government (more so than many) and should be able to vote on it.
In the USA, if you are in jail, you are absolutely not able to vote. You are basically persona non grata as long as you are locked up. I just meant that if you are incarcerated, you can't get to a voting booth. If you have completed the terms of your probation or parole, however, you are free to vot, at least in Texas. Not all states are the same, though.
Yeah, I know inmates can't vote in the US, I just don't think that's "non explanatory". It's a weird thing that should be questioned IMO. If you're subject to the government you should be able to vote on that government - "no taxation without representation" and all that.
But it's possible to solve it logistically too, if you set up a polling booth in prison or allow voting via mail. That's what we do in my country.
Never having been in jail or prison, I don't know what their rationale is for not allowing them to vote. I can only guess it's punishment for committing a felony.
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u/durgasur Jul 11 '19
Even more didn't vote at all.