I just don't understand people who don't vote.

[struggle4progress]

We had turnout below 20% in yesterday's local elections here

I guess I'm not exactly crying today, because everybody and everything, that I voted for, won by blowout margins

But still, wtf?

There was an incorporation referendum on the ballot for a local unincorporated town: several thousand registered voters were eligible to vote on that, but only about 10% of them actually voted, and it currently seems this issue will determined by a margin of maybe a dozen votes -- so a tiny handful of people, who actually cared enough to vote, will decide for everybody else

Really, wtf?

I'll get over my disillusionment in a couple of days, and I'll remember soon that it's always better in presidential election years

But right now, today, if anybody around here tells me they're part of the 99%, I'm likely to ask if they're also part of the 83% -- who didn't vote

wtf?

[sinkingfeeling]

1. I guess some people are just happy to let a handful of others make all the decisions. I also

don't understand why people don't vote.

[Shagbark Hickory]

2. If voting was effective, it'd be illegal. n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

12. Well, I disagree. Specially in local elections. There have been taxes enacted on a vote of

5% of the population. There have been offices filled with people having a single vote more. I really want people who are open minded on my school boards and city council, and will vote in even the 'smallest, off-year' election.

Yesterday, a mere 23% of the voters in Ft. Smith turned down a 1% sales tax on restaurant food that would have provided for the operation of a civic center. That in turn would have brought in something like $20 million a year into the town's economy. When more restaurants, bars, and motels close up, some of the 77% who didn't vote will be unhappy.

[struggle4progress]

20. I remember a time when people got the crap kicked out of them for trying to register folk to vote.

The good-ole-boys network back then sure thought voting mattered, and they were willing to resort to all manner of stuff, including violence, to keep some folk from voting

I remember when the "states rights" conservatives on the US Supreme Court, in a panic, overruled state law to shut down a recount in Florida

The status quo back then sure thought votes mattered, and they were willing to ignore basic legal principles and their own ideology to make sure only some votes were counted

I remember recent Republican efforts to make it harder, not easier, for people to vote -- for example, by throwing out valid voter registration forms in Ohio because the paper was the wrong weight or other such crap

I remember corporate America recently convincing the Supreme Court to abandon a century of case law to allow corporations to spend unlimited money to influence elections

I don't know who taught you that little slogan about voting, but I'm not much impressed by it

[HappyMe]

3. I don't understand it either.

What's worse is that the non-voters tend to complain the loudest.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

6. Then they become teabaggers.....

...and exhibit all the civic ignorance they've piled up for ages.

[NNN0LHI]

7. I have noticed that same phenomena

[mmonk]

4. I've understood it better in the last decade.

[NNN0LHI]

5. I was just going to post something similar to this when I seen this thread

I find people who don't vote rather pathetic.

Don

[TBF]

8. Rich folks understand voting because it works for them -

for the rest of us not so much. We can vote all we want and we still have: voting problems (Diebold and Kathy Nickolas), outright theft (Bush v. Gore), candidates who benefit only the 1% (all repubs), and ones that we hope will work for us but in the end they offer crumbs at most (Pres. Obama).

For the 99% who don't own most of the wealth we can vote on social issues, and sometimes make some headway there, but on economic issues we are poorer now than we've ever been.

People aren't stupid - they see that and figure "why bother".

[redqueen]

9. "If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it." - unverified,

but a popular quote widely attributed to Mark Twain.

Another popular figure is George Carlin. He is also widely quoted re: politics.

"For myself, I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way. On Election Day, I stay home. Two reasons: first of all, voting is meaningless; this country was bought and paid for a long time ago. That empty shit they shuffle around and repackage every four years doesn't mean a thing."

Oh and this one always gets lots of applause:

"There's a reason for this, there's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got... because the owners of this country don’t want that. I'm talking about the real owners now... the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.

Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want.

They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.

And now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later 'cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice.

Nobody seems to care. Good, honest, hard-working people: white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good, honest, hard-working people continue — these are people of modest means — continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all! At all! At all! And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream, 'cause you have to be asleep to believe it."

And then there's the greatest hits: There's no difference. They're all liars. It's rigged. Carlin covered most of these anyway, but you get my point I think. That's most of the reason people don't vote, right there. They feel disenfranchised, and too many people think it's cool and hip to nurture and encourage that disenfranchisement.

[NYC_SKP]

10. Sad, isn't it? How to make damned sure your opinion doesn't matter: cop a tude and don't vote.

I'd rather put in the effort if there was even just a 1% chance that it matters, than write it off and ENSURE that my opinion doesn't matter.

Self fulfilling and defeatist.

x(

[HappyMe]

15. Agreed.

[Township75]

11. Because as we have experienced, new boss = old boss.

To most people at DU, politcs = sports. You have a team and you are going to root for it and get out and support it. For most people in the country, it isnt' sport and they are pretty discusted with politics in general. A lot of resources get put into it and the course of the country doesn't change....and they aren't going to fall for" well if you voted for politician/party X, you would get the change" because they already tried that.

[Charronxyz]

13. The illusion has to be kept alive...

even though we know the system is rigged and undemocratic, lets all be complicit and participate in this fraud and give legitimacy to this corporate two party system.

[yodermon]

14. you are in a political bubble. Lot's of folks just didn't know there was an election yesterday. n/t

[struggle4progress]

22. How fargin hard can it be to remember the second Tuesday in November? Folk manage to remember

Memorial Day and Labor Day and Thanksgiving; hell, they even manage to cope with daylight savings time

Anybody tells me "I didn't know there was an election yesterday," I'm gonna be thinkin Bald shizz! cuz I'm pretty sure they remember a whole host of other days without any problem

[Fumesucker]

25. I have a family member who has to be at work at 6:00 am..

He told me that two people showed up an hour early on Monday out of about a ten person crew.

So no, not everyone copes with DST..

[gateley]

16. Thom Hartmann said that of the people who are registered

to vote, about half of them do, and they don't start paying attention until maybe a month (?) before the election.

And he was referring to Presidential elections!

Observing the vast majority of people I know here (not that I know thousands), I think they're not concerned with local issues, leaving the decision making up to the people who are "into politics", unless something happens to them directly. As long as they're going to their jobs every day and are able to pay their bills, that's all that they pay attention to.

I'd love to use your "are you also a part of the 83% who didn't vote?", but I don't think many of the people I know are even more than vaguely aware of the 99% movement. And if they are, they think they're not among them. :(

[Xithras]

17. My wife didn't vote yesterday.

She has a busy life. Politics simply isn't on her radar screen (and you have no idea how hard I've tried to put it there). She was even in the car with me when I went to vote, and she's REGISTERED. All she had to do was walk in and fill out the ballot. She declined, because she had no idea what was on the ballot and didn't want to fill one out blind.

I haven't missed an election since my 18th birthday. Voting is important. According to the electronic counter on top of my ballot box, I was one of only 16 people in my precinct who felt the same way.

[randome]

18. Voting should NOT be important except for elections.

We should have fewer issue votes because that's generally a way for politicians to avoid taking responsibility for making their own decisions.

[femrap]

19. It amazes me as well....

Yesterday, I was canvassing in a Section 8 Complex for No on Issue 2 in Ohio....and there were only three addresses on the list out of hundreds of apartments.

The last door I knocked on, the mother was not home. So I spoke w/ her 20 year-old daughter who was maybe 6 months pregnant. She told me she really wanted to vote No of Issue 2, but had no idea how to get registered.

Anyway I asked if she had the Internet. She did. I told her to go to the county's Board of Elections and it was filled with all the information she would need. She was very thankful for the information.

I told her that most people vote only during the Presidential Election which is next year, but that it is the Local Elections that really have the most impact on our day-to-day lives. She totally understood that.

I don't think I'll be able to get her out of my mind.

[treestar]

21. Me neither. I used to know a guy who boasted of it

Do they think that makes them cool, or something? Above it all, maybe. But they are the same people that would allow tyranny to take over. They just let others decide things for them.

[mnhtnbb]

23. Somebody I know put up on her fb page yesterday "I don't want to vote"

Egads! All the friends were telling her to just do it--me included!
Local elections are actually where people CAN make a difference. Sometimes
it's a matter of a handful of votes that determines who gets on a school
board or city council.

Geesh.

[Fumesucker]

24. I imagine it's a similar feeling to what motivated this..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2259539

[KurtNYC]

26. Democracy should happen every day, not just every 4 years

We need to organize around issues and goals; not around fallible, buy-able politicians.