Data Is Beautiful

Seriously! I had no idea so few people voted.

If it makes you feel any better, the trend looks like more people are voting as time goes on.

Maybe 3% voted for a third party, and because they aren't shown the other bars were expanded to fill the entire space

Just like the sub on reddit, the data in DataIsBeautiful apparently doesn't actually have to be beautiful.

Because in the US democracy every vote is equal, but some are more equal than others.

We were supposed to be a representative democracy with one rep for every 33,000 Americans. When voting for president each state gets one vote per rep and one for each of their two senators.

A while back some assholes decided that 33,000 is too representative and we should have a fixed number instead. So now it turns out that Wyoming should get one rep for every 58,000 Americans so their votes are worth far more than a Californian's.

People don’t vote, states vote. Semi proportionally to number of people, but it isn’t linear. This means that California gets 50 some odd votes and they all go to the democrats most of the time but Wyoming gets 3 (the minimum) despite it being smaller than many cities in population and they all go to the republicans basically every time. That’s why swing states are a thing that exists and matters. Back in the 00s Florida and Ohio were in the sweet spot of big and could go either way (insert joke about my girlfriend) but now they’re both considered firmly Republican states, meanwhile Wisconsin lost its Republican status and now swings as did Arizona. When people talk about texas possibly becoming a swing state as a big deal this is why, it doesn’t matter who gets the popular vote, texas is so big and serves as a counterweight to California and New York for the republicans that if the democrats win Texas without the republicans picking up several states that they never get, all of the swing states, or one of the two big hitters of the Dems then there’s basically no chance for them to win.

They usually justify it by saying it's to prevent the tyranny of the majority (two wolves and a sheep biting on dinner).

But a case could be made that it's a way to keep the elite entrenched.

The founders were a gentleman's club. Which is basically a fraternity. They made up rules that made sense to a bunch of frat boy farmers with enlightenment libraries.

It was a compromise so the smaller states were willing to join the United States. Same reason there are two senators for each state.

when he had both the incumbent advantage and was still riding the post-9/11 patriotism wave

And slandering John Kerry, actual veteran and protestor, with "swiftboating" horseshit.

W's media goons were some of the slimiest motherfuckers ever to darken Washington's marble halls.

It's funny because here being incumbent usually is a disadvantage because you get blamed by all the crap that's happening, even the little that isn't their fault.

7% is enough to swing any election in history (the part of it that is shown on the chart)

I think even more horrifying is that more people voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016

There is a map like that out there, if I remember correctly like 40+ states had “did not vote” win…

Step 1: make voting compulsory

Step 2: move it to a weekend

Step 3: easy access to prepoll or postal voting for people who can't make it on the official day

Bonus step: change voting system to IRV, or even better, to something proportional like MMP or STV

There you go. America has a functioning electoral system.

Or do it the other way around, the amount of money that the government can spend is limited by voter turnout.

Clearly if you can't get people excited enough to vote for your policies, you don't have a mandate.

In norway, the lowest voter turnout we've ever had is 75.4%

Australia has mandatory voting which is an interesting one. Quick search tells me the last turnout was nearly 90%.

The chart says it's only looking at eligible voters

But looking it up shows around 4.6 million were disenfranchised in 2022 because of convictions. In semi-good news, it's gone down recently in part because more states are starting to allow people to vote after they've served time. So if people keep pushing in other states, it can hopefully keep going that way

Should we fix the system so that people both want to and can vote for candidates they want?

No, that wouldn't be American. Make something punitive that can be disproportionately leveraged against the poor and marginalized community neighborhoods.

That sounds like unnecessarily punishing low income people, in my opinion it would be better to give the 10$ to those who vote.