What if I told you the most powerful citizens in the free world are THOSE WHO DON’T VOTE?
I’m Mr. Beat, and I’m a voter. In fact, I’m about to get my vote
on right now. (turn around) Oh there I go right now. (turn back to camera and points)
Hey I’m pretty sure it’s not illegal for your clone to vote ok. (turn)
Anyway, this may be no surprise to you since I teach government for a living,
but I love to vote, and I think voting for public officials is one
of the most important things you can possibly do. (turn)
I’ve voted in pretty much EVERY election since I first became eligible to vote back in 2000. So
yeah, like 21 or 22 elections. I’ve lost track at this point actually. (turn)
But here’s the thing. Many people DON’T vote. I mean, the ones who CAN vote…don’t. (turn)
That’s right…people vote…NOT to vote. (turn)
In this video, we shall look at the _____MAIN reasons WHY people choose not to vote. (turn)
But first, if you DO vote, you know that it can be difficult to find out the TRUTH these days
with so much misinformation, media bias, and political polarization going around. This is
why I am excited to once again be sponsored by Ground News, a news platform that makes it easy
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only has an 8% right-leaning coverage. You can even see just how different the headlines are.
Look at this headline from the only right-leaning news outlets that reported on this. Meanwhile,
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Reason #1 They think the candidates all suck
For this first reason, let’s focus on my home country,
the United States of America. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It thinks it’s kind of a big deal.
While the United States has federal elections every two years, voter turnout there tends to
be lower than most other democratic countries. Now, part of this is because voting is not
mandatory here. Still, turnout is highest during general elections that coincide with presidential
elections. The presidential election of 2020 had the highest voter turnout since 1900. It was
impressive, but what people still didn’t bring up much was the fact that 1/3 of all folks eligible
DID NOT VOTE. Well 1 in 3 Americans apparently disagreed with you there, Bernie, as they chose to
stay home instead. That’s 80 million people! And for most presidential elections over the past 100
years, the turnout rate has often only hovered between 50 and 60%. And it’s even worse for
midterm elections. Midterm elections, or general elections held near the midpoint of a president’s
four year TERM, have typically had a turnout rate of between just 35 and 45% in recent years,
although in 2018 49.4% showed up to vote, the highest midterm election turnout since 1914.
For local elections, which are held every YEAR, only around 15 to 27% of those eligible vote. Ugh.
However, there is quite a bit of evidence that plurality voting, which the United States mostly
has in ALL of its elections, is causing Americans to not be motivated to vote. Plurality voting just
means you only get to pick one candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins the election.
It’s winner takes all, and I go into its problems in THIS video. In countries where voters choose
public officials according to proportional representation, turnout is generally much higher.
Plurality voting reinforces the duopoly of the two major political parties, and it often means people
are picking the lesser of the two evils when they vote. You see, most Americans identify as
Independent, meaning they are NOT affiliated with either of the two major political parties. This
means they often are not that excited about the two choices they seem to only have come Election
Day, so they’d rather just stay home and protest the entire system, yo. Well sure, they could vote
for third party candidates, but most Americans view those third party candidates as having little
chance of winning at all…which is why third party candidates have little chance of winning…at all.
Now, you COULD vote in primary elections or caucus to get the two major political parties to nominate
a candidate you actually really like, but often this process is a pain in the butt,
especially if there are CLOSED primaries, and again, the party only gets to nominate ONE,
so our old friend plurality voting determines who will be the one and only nominee.
Reason #2 The candidate they prefer has no chance of winning
This is related to the first reason, but often THIS reason is due to, specifically,
the Electoral College. Unless Americans live in a swing state, meaning a state that tends
to go back and forth between the two major political parties when voting,
often they feel like their vote won’t make a difference. For example, in 2020 almost
70% of all votes in Wyoming went to the Republican candidate, Donald Trump. The Democratic candidate,
Joe Biden, got just 26.6% of the votes there. If you’re a Democrat in Wyoming,
why would you be motivated to vote if you know your party has little chance of winning there?
Reason #3 There are obstacles to voting
In the United States, there are many barriers that prevent folks from voting.
First of all, some people can’t get off work or school to vote on Election Day. After all,
there’s a limited number of hours on that day in which you can vote. Sure, most states offer
at least some sort of early voting, but some do not. Even if you can find time off to vote,
maybe you don’t have an ID to vote, as many states require. Or perhaps English
isn’t your first language, and you have a hard time reading election information to
know where to go or what’s even on the ballot. In most states, you have to go out of your way
to register to vote. Or even if you are registered, sometimes officials do these
things called “voter roll purges,” where they just decide to deregister a bunch of voters at once,
often not telling them that they’ve made them ineligible to vote. In the 2020 elections,
many voters encountered really long lines at polling places, or spots where voting takes
place for a given precinct during elections. This is because there has been a decline in the number
of polling places in recent years despite an increasing population. A big reason why polling
places have shut down is less funding for election offices. Perhaps they have a disability that
makes getting to the polling place more difficult. Perhaps they forgot about the deadline for sending
in an absentee ballot, or a ballot you mail in since you can’t make it to your polling station.
All of these voting barriers can be intimidating,
so many decide it’s just not worth it to try dealing with them. (turn)
For those first three reasons,
I was mostly referencing specific circumstances that explain why AMERICANS may not want to vote,
but for these last three reasons, we see them everywhere in the world.
Reason #4 They believe voting,
in general, doesn’t make a difference
They think the systems that our government is based on are so corrupted that any vote is just
a superficial gesture at this point. They are disillusioned with politics,
and they feel like their vote wouldn’t have actually made a difference with the big,
sweeping changes needed to make society better.
Reason #5 Eh, They
may have a point. Mathematically speaking, perhaps voting doesn’t make a difference.
There’s even a phenomen to describe this. It’s called the paradox of voting,
and it says the costs of voting almost always exceed the expected benefits. It’s HIGHLY
unlikely that your individual vote will be the pivotal one that changes the results of any one
election. Therefore, many feel it’s just not worth it to deal with obstacles to voting.
Reason #6 They’re just not that interested in politics
They don’t see how what these public officials do is actually relevant to their own lives. Who
cares that Tim Bob got elected. That’s not going to affect MY day-to-day life, is it?
Well, I guess that’s MY job, eh. To make all this stuff RELEVANT to you.
Look, these public officials DO affect your day-to-day life. There is not one
day in your life that goes by that is not affected by what your government does.
The water you used to take a shower this morning. That sales tax you paid when you
bought your coffee. Those roads you drove on today. The classroom you’re sitting in right
now. LITERALLY THE AIR YOU ARE BREATHING IN RIGHT NOW IS CLEAN OR NOT CLEAN BECAUSE OF
GOVERNMENT ACTION OR INACTION. You can’t escape the influence of government. It’s all around us.
Second, screw the paradox of voting, ok?!? Voting CAN make a difference.
This isn’t just the premise for a mediocre movie, ok? (Swing Vote (2008)) We’ve literally
had elections that were determined by a single vote. Like, in real life. In 2016,
Republican David Ainsworth beat Democrat Sarah Buxton for a seat in Vermont’s state legislature
by one vote. He got 1,004 votes. She got 1,003 votes. What’s even crazier is that,
six years prior, Buxton defeated Ainsworth for the same seat by just one vote. In 2002,
Republican Anne Ruwet beat Democrat John Kovaleski for a seat in Connecticut’s
state legislature by one vote. She got 3,236 votes, He got 3,235.
There are several other examples of close elections like this. I’m tellin’ ya! (turn)
Ultimately, though, when you think about it, voting is just having your voice heard,
and I’ve never met another human being who doesn’t want to have their voice heard.
You go out of your way to let everyone know your favorite food, music, shows, and sports teams,
so why on earth would you not want everyone to know who should have power over you.
Because ultimately, that’s what we are doing when we vote.(turn)
We are granting permission for certain people to have more power over us and control our community.
People who don’t vote tend to be less educated, have less money, and are younger than most of
society. As it turns out, these are often the groups LESS represented in government, the ones
whose voices are heard the LEAST AMOUNT. And this feeds into their disillusionment, creating
a vicious cycle of “well government’s not doing anything to help us anyway so why bother voting.”
The bottom line is, the people that SHOULD be voting arguably more than all others,
are NOT voting. (turn) Let’s change that. I vote that you vote.(turn around) Oh look,
my clone is done voting. See it’s so quick and painless, too. Do it!
So after we decide to vote, how do we determine WHO to vote FOR? (turn) Well, believe it or not,
a lot of times political logos can affect who we decide to vote for. (turn) Hey guess
what? (turn) This video is a collaboration with Cheddar, who has just released a video about the
hidden meanings in political logos and why we have political logos in the first place! (turn)
They’re releasing their video at the same time as this one. Check it out there! (pointing awkwardly)
So why ELSE do people decide not to vote? Let me know down below,
fo show. (turn) And now it’s time for my monthly shout out to Patreon supporters who donate at
least $15 or more each month to my channel. Starting with my biggest donors alphabetically,
thank you to Adam Luckey, Alicia Solberg, Andrew B., Anthony Beckett, Aseef Ismail, Austin Siros,
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Matt Standish, NeoR14, Nik Everett, Osbers Gaming, Pat Iapicca, Sean Conant,
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and Zachary F. Parker. Thanks to all of you so much for donating, and thank YOU for watching.