this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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I don't understand this.
Voting is easy and a basic civic duty we are taught about in middle school, in pretty much every state, you have weeks to do it, can drop off in mail boxes, ballot boxes, in person, early, etc.
Presidential elections only happen every four years, and there are going to be very very few people who would not be aware that it's happening well in advance.
Not voting is just plain lazy, that's all. It's a responsibility that takes very little effort to do, there are multiple avenues provided to do it and you only have to do it two or three times a decade.
No one is forcing me to take a shower every morning or brush my teeth, or go to work everyday, but I do it because it's important, and my overall health and life is affected by it.
Its easy to vote when you have the privilege (time) do it.
Many people work two or three jobs to make ends meet. Many others have kids in addition to wasting time commuting to work. In my situation, if I relied on public transport to get to work I'd waste nearly 5 additional hours per day for a total of 14 hours. That's 88% (14/16 hours) of my waking hours (assuming 8 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period) dedicated to doing something that will primarily benefit a large corporation. If I had kids and had to cook a full meal + get them ready for anything I'd have zero hours to take care of anything for myself.
The people struggling to make end meet are working harder than you can even imagine, considering this is your perspective.
It's hard to vote when you have a several week window, can do it from your house, and 4 years to prepare? I just don't see it.
Voting is very deliberately made highly inconvenient depending on zip code, and additionally the parties are not different enough for many people to care. You get these people to vote by making it more convenient and quick, and promising popular policies like Medicare for All.
How come rural, under educated voters are able to make it out every election without problems.
I'm not going to defend people failing to do a simple task once every four years.
You have four years to prepare for the event. And there are only two states that don't offer early voting, and those states allow absentee ballots for people who won't be home, have disabilities, or would otherwise struggle to vote in person. We have more resources available than ever, it's easier than ever to vote, generally, thanks to widespread mail in voting adoption (which was demonstrated by a 6% higher turnout in 2020)
I am sure you can find excuses for people here and there who were really truly unable, but 90 million eligible voters failed to do their civic duty. Even assuming every single homeless person was unable to vote, which is unlikely, that's still 88.5 million that didn't show up, and let's take EVERY single person with a disability and assume they somehow couldn't vote, that's still 45 million people that didn't show up. And let's take EVERY single person under the poverty and assume they were unable to vote, then let's assume there is absolutely zero overlap, you still have 10+ million people who didn't show up, and that's assuming not a single of the above people voted.
Failing to prepare for something doesn't excuse you from the failure of doing it.
I hope you understand you reek of privledge with the way you talk. Rural voters have an easier time of voting, typically, because of the lower population density. In fact, urban areas are often intentionally short-staffed.
At the end of the day, people vote if they feel like it makes a difference. The fact of the matter is that it largely doesn't outside of swing states, and even in swing states the differences between the two candidates was not as high as it was in 2020, when Biden at least pretended to be progressive.
You have to take a real, systemic analysis and stop blaming individuals for broader societal problems.
I don't give a shit if I reek of anything, I give a shit about the millions of people who fail to fulfil their civic duties.
I'm blaming individuals for individually not doing their individual part.
Deciding not to vote because it 'feels' a certain way is just stupid, I don't care.
I'll add, rural people have no transit systems or infrastructure, they have to have running and maintained cars, and the ability to drive them, which would disproportionately affect disabled people and others that would have difficulty getting to physical polls.
You can continue to blame the oppressed for the system that oppresses them, and all you'll have is personal frustration and an inability to fix anything.
When you come across a problem, you must be careful to accurately identify the levers that can be pulled and the mechanisms behind the moving parts. The fact is, voter turnout is tied to ease of access to vote, and the chance for real change to come from voting. Currently, voting is difficult for millions of people, and voting doesn't enact change. You've failed to identify the source of the problem, and are blaming those downstream from the source, and as such will fail to get what you want.
Voting isn't a civic duty when your votes are meaningless.