Social Question

Kardamom's avatar

What would/should you do to get people to vote?

Asked by Kardamom (33481points) May 18th, 2018 from iPhone

What I mean is, that I know quite a few people who are in agreement with me politically, but they don’t vote. If all of these people actually exercised their right to vote, they could tip the balance of an election.

The reasons these people (my own friends, relatives, co-workers, and acquaintences) give for not voting are usually one of these:

1. My single vote doesn’t count.

2. I’m too busy, and voting is inconvenient.

3. I forgot to vote (or register).

Maybe one single vote won’t make a difference, but if ALL , or at leat most, of the non-voters did vote, the entirety of an election could swing the other direction. It only takes a small percentage to change the outcome of a close election. All you have to do is look at the 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

For those folks who say voting is inconvenient, you have the option (in most states) to vote by mail. I’ve been doing that for over 20 years. Voting by mail gives you the ability to take your time, and sit in the privacy of your own home, to cast your ballot. Not registered? You can register online, at the DMV, and when you renew your license and registration, and there are always people registering voters outside of grocery stores and other places, during the time leading up to an election. There are organizations that will provide transportation, if you feel the need to vote at an actual polling place. Most people have friends, relatives, or neighbors who would gladly drive these folks to their polling place.

For the folks who manage to forget to vote, year after year, there are calendars, PSAs on TV, alarms can be set on your phone, there are Post-it notes, and dry erase boards, and all sorts of other ways to remind oneself to vote. It works the same way these folks remind themselves to get to their doctor appointments, or to get up and go to work, or to run down to the bank to deposit their tax refund checks.

What, if anything, have you done to try to assist, or convince people of the importance of voting?

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11 Answers

ragingloli's avatar

- Schedule it on a weekend.
– Schedule it on a holiday.
– Make it a nationwide mandatory holiday.
– Make voting mandatory.

alternatively:
– become a monarchy.
– become a dictatorship.
– assign government positions randomly from the general population. Can not get any worse than what you have right now.
– abolish all government and become a continent of warring tribes, militias, warlords, and crime kingpins. Can not get any worse than what you have right now.

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

By making it convenient to vote. Like online voting. I love watching cable news reporting live even for places that I don’t live in. Make election more exciting to participating in.

elbanditoroso's avatar

I can’t speak for others – I haven’t missed voting in 45 years.

I think that internet online voting is way to easy to cheat and hack. It won’t work.

My frustration is that I am democrat in the deep south. I keep hoping that Georgia will eventually turn blue, but it hasn’t yet. So in some ways I know my vote is wasted because there are too many damned republicans in my county. But I’m still going to vote my conscience.

Yellowdog's avatar

Why not flood the news media with how terrible and reprehensible Donald Trump is?

For instance, you can show Antifa groups burning buildings where Jay Sekulow is speaking and say that’s Trump’s guys burning down a building where some Jew is speaking. Or show MS-13 gangs behind bars and saying this is what Trump does to DACA kids.

Every day at least three scandalous stories breaks. Lets make sure they are on all the major media and do some door-to-door intelligencing to make sure all our neighbors and communities know.

We can host community events or make sure all Graduation Commencement exercises host speakers who drum the parents and students into a hysterical frenzy out for blood and tell them to go vote because, by not voting, you let this vile dictator get in office. and your young graduate has a very dark future.

(All of these have been done and they work)

chyna's avatar

^Apparently not, he was still voted in.

KNOWITALL's avatar

I get voter registration cards in the spring and hang out in public areas registering people.

Frankly, I think people who don’t vote are lazy and lost their right to any political opinions. (No offense @MrGrimm haha)

kritiper's avatar

Educate them.

johnpowell's avatar

Vote by mail. Motor voter. We just had a primary here a few days ago. I actually didn’t know about it until a ballot showed up in my my mailbox. I voted since it was easy. No bullshit standing in lines. I filled in the bubbles at my leisure and signed it and stuck it in the mailbox.

MollyMcGuire's avatar

I don’t worry about it too much. The people I’ve heard say they don’t bother to vote are not in that group of people I would expect to be ‘informed.’ If you aren’t, then please don’t vote…..or show up for jury duty.

syz's avatar

*Election day should be a federal holiday.
*Voter registration should be automatic.
*The electoral college should be done away with.
*Citizens United should be overturned. All donations should be 100% transparent.
*Our tax dollars should pay for campaigns – each candidate gets the same amount of money, a set amount of tv/radio/print time/space allotted to them. They’re not allowed to spend more than that. That way the rich cats wouldn’t be the only ones with a chance to win, and elected officials wouldn’t spend ¾ of their time fund-raising for the next election rather than doing their job.

If Americans believed that the system was fair, maybe more of them would show up to vote.

Would it be legal for citizens to earn a tax credit for voting?

Kardamom's avatar

^^ Best answer so far : )

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