He thinks that if even at this late stage of the election process they still don’t know enough to make a choice, then perhaps they should do us all a favor and not vote at all.
There is a school of thought that says that the number of of truly undecided voters, those who follow politics and the election news and definitely plan to vote but are genuinely conflicted about whom to vote for, is vanishingly small and thus not worth bothering about and so there is point in expending much effort in trying to persuade them. Most of the so-called ‘undecideds’ are actually leaning towards one candidate or another but are not really engaged with the process and what they are undecided about is whether to bother to vote or not.
Nowadays, campaigns can use the public information that is gleaned from the internet to make fairly accurate assessments about the political leanings of pretty much everyone. So the so-called ‘ground game’, the effort to identify those people who likely lean towards your side and get them to the polls on or before election day, is where much of the campaigns’ efforts likely are or at least should be.
“So the so-called ‘ground game’, the effort to identify those people who likely lean towards your side and get them to the polls on or before election day, is where much of the campaigns’ efforts likely are or at least should be.”
Well, of course. A feature of the system in your land.
Voting is not compulsory in the USA, thus this business of trying to motivate people to actually vote.
Not a thing here in Oz; the motivation is to vote for you or those who will help you (did I mention we also have a preferential system?).
Ah well.
Thus it is with the benighted slanted archaism that the USA’s system embodies.
I see no real prospects of changing it.
All you mob can do is make the best of these lamentable circumstances; good luck.
I think the daily show youtube channel recently reposted a bunch of their undecided voter videos from the past few elections, and couple of them featured the same people. I felt like they were making the case that “undecided voters” basically like the attention and want to be pandered too, maybe even on an individual basis.
I think there is some element of misguided neutrality taken to absurdity, and I think a similar attitude affects news coverage, fact checking, etc., where completely baseless, unhinged ideas are given nearly equal footing with ideas backed up by decades of research and results.
And then, I think a smaller subset thinks orange asshole is a really bad choice, but because of racism, misogyny, or whatever, just doesn’t want to vote for Harris (or Obama in past elections (no clue about what the hangups were with Biden…)), and is waiting for an excuse to justify their inner bigotry.
I don’t know, but I think chasing after the “undecided voter” is a bad strategy, I think it’s better to try and appeal to those who are torn twixt voting and sitting out, or voting for a third party (a lot of those are lost causes…)
Trump is entertaining, so I will vote to let him have the nuclear codes / s.
@ lochaber, 2: Biden is a Catholic. You would think the USA has made some progress since JFK, but the fundies are going backwards and I heard a bunch of whining back in 2020 that they just *couldn’t* vote for a Catholic, so they were stuck with voting for Orange Foolius.
Like Lewis Black, I also wish these folks would just not vote.
And yet the guy behind Project 2025 (Kevin Roberts) is a radical Catholic.
I’m not a fan of stoking sectarianism, but I must admit that have occasionally wondered if there’s some mileage to be made in trying to split the right along those lines…
I love how many articles talk about people being [your favorite synonym for “shocked”] at something DT said or did. If you are still experiencing these responses, you haven’t been paying attention for nine years.
Matt, exactly.
John Morales, even in places where voting is compulsory, people can abstain by returning a blank ballot (and likely other methods, such as some equivalent of a write-in vote). How common is this behavior in Australia?
anat, good point.
There are statistics about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey_vote but it’s not insignificant.
In practice, one has to get their name crossed off the list at a voting station (traditional) or via postal vote (newish, but much more convenient) which requires an equivalent due diligence registration.
And that’s it.
For example: https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/5161-why-dick-doodles-on-the-ballot-paper-are-their-own-election-statement
So. One has to mandatorily “turn up” to vote, but one need not make a legit vote having done that.
Just the ballot.
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Specifics here: https://www.aec.gov.au/voting/informal_voting/summary.htm