• slurpeesoforion@startrek.website
    9·
    2 months ago

    Some think that if a candidate is doing well or poor enough they won’t bother to vote because it won’t matter. Kind of like when everyone assumes someone else called 911 when there’s an emergency.

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 months ago

      Do we have any evidence that that has ever happened, ever ever? Based on the exit polls, we didn’t see that in 2016 (Democratic turnout was about what we expected it to be). And we know that people really like to play for the winning team, even if the team is already winning.

      I am pretty confident I’ve heard that the opposite is true–that hopeless feeling like the other side is certain to win, and your vote will not change anything, can get people to stay home–but I haven’t heard anything compelling suggesting that complacency can get people to sit out an election.

        • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 months ago

          Yeah, do we have any evidence that people have stayed home because they thought everything was settled and there wasn’t any need for them to vote?

          This seems to be received wisdom, but this will be my sixth general presidential election, and in that entire time I haven’t seen any news or studies or polls (or even any anecdotal stories) about it.

    • GBU_28@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      If they exist, I don’t want to share a planet with such an idiot.

      I cling to my original hypothesis that they are just lazy, and never intended to.

      (I’m obv not speaking of those who can’t get off work, have an emergency, disability, etc. That’s another discussion)

      • Omega@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 months ago

        Around half of voters are going to vote for Trump. A decent portion of people voting for Harris are swing voters, meaning they at least consider voting for Trump. A significant portion of people are going to vote for Jill Stein, despite the fact that Trump winning is BAD for just about everything she cares about, and host of human rights she doesn’t seem to care about.

        Irrationally hopeful voters are at the bottom of my shit list.

        • GBU_28@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          Irrelevant to the topic of Democratic voters starting home from “complacency”

          • Omega@lemmy.world
            1·
            2 months ago

            If we’re talking about objective impact, then I guess the shit list is Trump voters at the top, then Jill Stein voters and non-voters.