Eighty Million.
The right to vote is something all American citizens have. However, some choose not to exercise their right to vote. Only 66% of eligible voters voted in the 2020 election. To put this number into perspective, about 80 million people eligible to vote chose not to in the 2020 presidential election.
Eighty million people not voting is enough to completely alter the results of any election. President Joe Biden won the popular vote with 81 million votes in 2020. If the 80 million who refrained from voting had, they collectively could have resulted in a different candidate winning the election.
Voting plays such a crucial role in how our society works as well. Voters complain about how high taxes have risen, how inflation is out of control or how expensive college is. The solution to most of these problems is to vote for someone who will fix said issues.
Elections at all levels of government play a very important role in how our lives are affected. From national law changes, such as student aid and health care, all the way down to local elections that decide which part of town needs new roads – voting in this election can help determine how these things are handled.
People like to say that ‘their vote doesn’t matter’ but in reality, every vote matters. While your vote may be an insignificant number on the national scale, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. In local elections, a race could be decided by a handful of votes.
Even when it comes down to national elections, your vote is still meaningful. Just like you, 80 million people don’t vote, and even if a fraction of those people chose to vote, they could easily sway any election.
Another point is that ‘the Electoral College makes my vote not matter.’ Although the Electoral College is flawed, it still is based on the popular vote per state. If you think of the Electoral College as per state, your vote would mean even more due to your vote being included in a smaller pool of votes.
About 15% of states are ‘battleground’ states or states that are undecided and anyone can win. Living in those states tends to make your vote more important because elections tend to come down to those states. Even if you don’t live in one of the ‘battleground’ states, voters would still be able to flip a state in their favor.
If you decide not to vote because you determine the candidates don’t reflect your values, think about the millions of voters like you. The next time a candidate is voted in that you dislike, remember if you and all those other people who said their votes didn’t matter, the outcome could have been changed. Do a favor for everyone in this country and perform your civic duty and vote.
When you do decide to vote, make sure you are informed on the topics and candidates on the ballot. You don’t need to do hours of research for each candidate or need to know about the exact wording presented in a new amendment; all you need is about five minutes of knowledge to better understand what that candidate represents and what the amendment is for on the ballot.
Make sure to vote in your local elections. Local elections have a much lower turnout compared to national elections. Calloway county for example had about 55% of registered voters turn out in 2020 but only had 10.5% of people vote in the 2023 local primary election. Calloway county only has about 30,000 registered voters so 10% of that is only 3,000 votes. Your votes are important at this level because the pool of votes is so small making the elections easily swingable.
You can find this information on the candidates on their campaign websites, via news stories and/or by listening to candidates’ speeches.. For local elections, you can easily look up information about a candidate by typing their name into Google and seeing what party and issues they stand for. If you are trying to find information on an amendment you can read a summary of the proposed amendment by looking up the bill, or you can read news stories.
Voting isn’t hard to do; all it takes is a little bit of effort to change the country for the better.
