4 ms·

You can't make the voter turnout argument because the US election system is awful, and people know when their vote doesn't matter, or when it's being suppressed

You can't make the voter turnout argument because the US election system is awful, and people know when their vote doesn't matter, or when it's being suppressed, and choose not to vote

lapcat 3y ago
> people know when their vote doesn't matter, or when it's being suppressed, and choose not to vote Why would you count these people as "on board"? Moreover, even among the people who do vote, there are a lot who plug their noses and vote for what they consider to be the lesser evil, against the other candidate rather than with enthusiasm for their own candidate.
- toast0 3y ago
  It's not really possible to know if non-voters are on board or not. Because of how the elections are setup, we also don't get any real actionable information about how people might vote under different rules either. Some voters will vote in most elections, and some voters only turn out if they think there's a vote somewhere on the ticket where their vote counts.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    What it means to be "on board" is to endorse the leader's agenda. The context here is supporting the Moon landings rather than supporting any particular political candidate. (And recall that JFK only barely edged out Nixon in the extremely close 1960 election.) The question is not which candidate a non-voter would vote for, if forced to choose. That's why I mentioned the lesser of evils phenomenon. Also, non-voters are consistently at least 1/3 of the population, regardless of the "closeness" of the election, and there's not necessarily a correlation between closeness and turnout.
    - toast0 3y ago
      If that's the definition of "on board", we really don't have any useful information on if citizens (or residents) are on board or not. Other than if they stage a protest, they're probably not on board, but then again we don't know how many of the people who didn't attend the protest aren't on board but didn't go to the protest for whatever reason. I don't think there were protests about the moon landing, but maybe some small ones I never heard about.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        > If that's the definition of "on board", we really don't have any useful information on if citizens (or residents) are on board or not. Well, there's the submitted link: "In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing" ;-)
        toast0 3y ago
        a) I don't think a Gallup poll is useful information :P b) I thought we were talking about being onboard in landslide elections, as you quoted so many messages ago.
        lapcat 3y ago
        > a) I don't think a Gallup poll is useful information :P I'm not sure why you're here commenting on the Gallup poll article then, or how you think we would ever have useful information about the public? b) I thought we were talking about being onboard in landslide elections, as you quoted so many messages ago. Again, the context is the submitted link. I can't speak for the OP, but I'm guessing the idea was that a landslide election is supposed to give the winner a "mandate" for their agenda.
- amrocha 3y ago
  Because if you don't live in a swing state, even if you are fully on board it makes very little difference if you vote or not. And yes, you're right about the second part too. That's another reason the original post was wrong.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > if you don't live in a swing state, even if you are fully on board it makes very little difference if you vote or not. At the state level, there's no clear empirical correlation between turnout and closeness of elections.

You can't make the voter turnout argument because the US election system is awful, and people know when their vote doesn't matter, or when it's being suppressed, and choose not to vote

lapcat 3y ago

> people know when their vote doesn't matter, or when it's being suppressed, and choose not to vote Why would you count these people as "on board"? Moreover, even among the people who do vote, there are a lot who plug their noses and vote for what they consider to be the lesser evil, against the other candidate rather than with enthusiasm for their own candidate.

toast0 3y ago
It's not really possible to know if non-voters are on board or not. Because of how the elections are setup, we also don't get any real actionable information about how people might vote under different rules either. Some voters will vote in most elections, and some voters only turn out if they think there's a vote somewhere on the ticket where their vote counts.
- lapcat 3y ago
  What it means to be "on board" is to endorse the leader's agenda. The context here is supporting the Moon landings rather than supporting any particular political candidate. (And recall that JFK only barely edged out Nixon in the extremely close 1960 election.) The question is not which candidate a non-voter would vote for, if forced to choose. That's why I mentioned the lesser of evils phenomenon. Also, non-voters are consistently at least 1/3 of the population, regardless of the "closeness" of the election, and there's not necessarily a correlation between closeness and turnout.
  - toast0 3y ago
    If that's the definition of "on board", we really don't have any useful information on if citizens (or residents) are on board or not. Other than if they stage a protest, they're probably not on board, but then again we don't know how many of the people who didn't attend the protest aren't on board but didn't go to the protest for whatever reason. I don't think there were protests about the moon landing, but maybe some small ones I never heard about.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > If that's the definition of "on board", we really don't have any useful information on if citizens (or residents) are on board or not. Well, there's the submitted link: "In 1961 a Gallup poll showed only 33% of Americans in favor of moon landing" ;-)
      - toast0 3y ago
        a) I don't think a Gallup poll is useful information :P b) I thought we were talking about being onboard in landslide elections, as you quoted so many messages ago.
        lapcat 3y ago
        > a) I don't think a Gallup poll is useful information :P I'm not sure why you're here commenting on the Gallup poll article then, or how you think we would ever have useful information about the public? b) I thought we were talking about being onboard in landslide elections, as you quoted so many messages ago. Again, the context is the submitted link. I can't speak for the OP, but I'm guessing the idea was that a landslide election is supposed to give the winner a "mandate" for their agenda.
amrocha 3y ago
Because if you don't live in a swing state, even if you are fully on board it makes very little difference if you vote or not. And yes, you're right about the second part too. That's another reason the original post was wrong.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > if you don't live in a swing state, even if you are fully on board it makes very little difference if you vote or not. At the state level, there's no clear empirical correlation between turnout and closeness of elections.