[johnnyanmac]

Choosing not to vote is a vote for the status quo. That still is a choice.

There are BS loopholes we need to correct, but people who can't do the bare basics to reserve a morning to fill out a ballot fundamentally have themselves to blame.

[umanwizard]

Nonsense. If you live in one of the ~40 states where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, who you vote for makes no more difference than it does in Russia. It’s reasonable to protest by refusing to participate in that unfair system, and doing so doesn’t mean you support one candidate or the other.

[speff]

36% of eligible voters - 90 million people - likely had a similar attitude. The margin of victory was 2.3m votes. What's that phrase? Something about how no single raindrop thinking they're responsible for the flood.

[chii]

while it's true that there's quite a few non-votes that far outweight the margin of victory, they're all spread out and not in states that held marginal votes. It may actually indeed be the case that their turnout would not affect the results.

However, turnout don't only affect the results, but future results.

Politicians look at votes to determine their future trajectory - those who don't turn out won't be seen at all, and would be treated as if they don't exist. After all, why hadn't the native indians got the vote until legislated, and why slaves too, until some compromise was reached?

So voting, regardless of your effect on outcome, is important. I only wish the vote was easier, as some people need to take time off work to vote, or have to trek far, or make arrangements which would be inconvenient. For example, making postal voting easier to get is a good starting point.

[umanwizard]

Raindrops in New York, California and Mississippi are indeed not responsible for floods in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

[speff]

43% of eligible voters in Mississippi didn't vote. 42% in NY and 38% in CA. That's a significant amount of people who could have swung the election either way despite them being "safe" states. Any state can be in play if turnout ever increased significantly. And even if your state voted your way federally, did every local/state race go to what would've been your preferred candidate? I doubt it.