August 15, 2012 by David K. Sutton
Another Depressing Voting Story – 90 Million Americans Won’t Vote This November
Earlier today we learned that Pennsylvania’s discriminatory voter ID law was upheld by Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson. Now we learn from USA Today that 90 million Americans won’t vote this November despite being eligible to do so.
A nationwide USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll of people who are eligible to vote but aren’t likely to do so finds that these stay-at-home Americans back Obama’s re-election over Republican Mitt Romney by more than 2-1. Two-thirds of them say they are registered to vote. Eight in 10 say the government plays an important role in their lives. – USA Today
So we have Republicans suppressing the vote with voter ID laws and we have 90 million Americans who choose to self-suppress. And it turns out that a large majority of these poll weary citizens would vote for President Obama if they did choose to take part.
Do you now see why Republicans try so hard to suppress the vote?
They cite a range of reasons for declaring they won’t vote or saying the odds are no better than 50-50 that they will: They’re too busy. They aren’t excited about either candidate. Their vote doesn’t really matter. And nothing ever gets done, anyway. – USA Today
This also play into Republican “government is the problem” rhetoric. If you know that greater participation in the democratic process means doom for your party, you will go out of your way to make sure people feel like their vote doesn’t count and that government is corrupt and useless. Get enough people to believe that and it keeps the Republican Party viable. If we had 100% voter participation this election and all elections the Republican Party would find itself on the losing end of many more congressional races and it would be on the losing side of nearly, if not all, presidential elections. / photo by Keith Ivey
