Taylor Rehmet, a Democrat and local union leader, won a runoff for a state Senate seat that’s been held by Republicans since 1992. What’s more, he bested the Republican Leigh Wambsganss despite having one-tenth as much money. Much of Wambsganss’s funding came from Dunn and the Wilks brothers.
Republicans blamed low turnout for Rehmet’s victory, while pundits opined that the Trump administration’s unpopularity was to blame.
In America today, these are the same thing. The way you win is by encouraging certain people to vote and discouraging other people from voting. Trump has been taking care of discouraging Republicans and MAGA from voting all by himself.
I really think America needs mandatory voting to stop this behavior, but it’s much easier to encourage or discourage people to vote than it is to actually carry out the will of the people.
I really think America needs mandatory voting to stop this behavior
Yeah, forcing people to perform an act to legitimize an unjust system is really a great way to achieve reform.
Please explain how that’s supposed to work?
By at the same time also requiring some form of ranked choice for every election, and to have a “none of the above” option, and if over 50% of the votes have “none of the above” as the #1 choice the election must be redone with all new candidates. Everyone is thus able to truly vote for who and what they believe we have the turnout to never have to discuss the legitimacy of the winner.
forcing people to perform an act to legitimize an unjust system
I assume this means that you don’t believe votes are properly counted and that all of our elections are “rigged.”
If you have that belief, then what reforms do you think are possible? Most people who I’ve heard express those opinions are far right wing people who want to discard democracy.
Not the one you responded to but if I may hazard a guess I’d say they see non-voting as a protest against the two party representative democracy currently in place.
If you’re forced to vote and there is no blank alternative, you are being forced to legitimise it whether you like it or not.
In Australia, for example, which has mandatory voting, the only requirement is that you participate. So, you can do the equivalent of submitting a completely empty ballot if you want to protest.
