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It's not 50% though; in 2020, only ~240 million people were eligible to vote (out of 330 million, so about 72% of people); only ~158 million people actualy vote
by Cthulhu_ 2y ago
It's not 50% though; in 2020, only ~240 million people were eligible to vote (out of 330 million, so about 72% of people); only ~158 million people actualy voted (48%). Oversimplifying, only 25% of the population of the US voted for Trump, and it's probably even less due to the system of electors.
This is why democracy is broken, because not everyone gets a voice.
- s0fa37 2y agoI've never understood this argument. When performing scientific studies, there is a sample size of n = x hundred/thousand, and we then generalise the result across the entire population. Having 48% of the population participate in this "study" is likely to be very indicative of the likely voting choice for the remainder of the population, right? You really think that the proportion of votes for each party for those people that haven't voted would be any significant difference from those that did?
- wezdog1 2y agoYou're assuming the population is homogeneous
- shkkmo 2y ago> Having 48% of the population participate in this "study" is likely to be very indicative of the likely voting choice for the remainder of the population, right? That isn't how statistics work. Sample size reduces your error relative to the population you are randomly sampling from. When you don't have a random sampling, then you sampling method is what determines how generalizable your findings are. A good sample size with a bad sampling method tells us little to nothing about the general population and only informs us about the specific sub population for which the sample can be considered a random selection from. With significant differences in voting rates across many different demographics, votes are absolutely not a representative sample of the overall population.