Data Is Beautiful

Seriously! I had no idea so few people voted.

Election Day should be a national holiday to give folks a chance to vote.

The government should pass a law that it's required to vote, or give a reasonable explanation why you can't. Employers are punished for keeping their employees from voting.

Its actually illegal to do this. Yes, that's stupid.

Counter-proposition: you get to choose - either you cast the vote, or you get the free burger.

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

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.

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.

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.

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%.

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.