Posted by Jill continues her take with Part B of her series detailing the barriers and deficiencies in our voting system. After what we’ve experienced over the last two weeks with a rigged impeachment trial, is it any wonder many people simply throw up their hands and say, why bother? Well, we cannot let that happen!
Coming tomorrow, Part C from Jill explores some of the things we can do to make it easier to vote, as well as how to motivate the electorate. Thanks Jill!
Only 67% of all eligible voters are even registered to vote. That is only two out of every three adults. In yesterday’s post, we looked at the reasons people gave for not voting, some of which were ludicrous, such as “forgot”, “weather”, and “too busy”. But there are some legitimate reasons that people do not vote. To understand these, I think it is important to look at some of the demographics of the non-voters.
Race
Among white voters, 73.5% of eligible voters did actually vote in 2016. But minorities were much less likely to vote, with only 69.7% of African-Americans, 59.4% of Latinos, and the lowest group being Asians at 55.3%.
Age
Not surprisingly, the percentage of eligible voters who vote increases with age:
Age 18 to 24 58.5%
Age 25 to 34 66.4%
Age 35 to 44 69.9%
Age 45 to 54 73.5%
Age 55 to 64 76.6%
Age…
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On The Fence Voters 