Why do people in the USA not vote? & how to address this?

Millions of people in the USA who are able to vote do not vote. Why?

I’ve been researching online, and every article seems to have a list of different reasons, plus I've heard some first-hand from people that don't vote that aren't on those lists. So I threw them all together here. This list excludes people who are prevented from voting by law because of a conviction.

The reasons millions of people in the USA who are able to vote but don't include:

• they don’t have the identification needed by law to register, and they either don’t know how to get that proper ID, or the fees and work hours to get the proper ID gets in the way of obtaining such, or the hassle just doesn’t seem worth it
   
• even if they have the identification needed, the hassle of registering to vote doesn’t seem worth it, or they don’t understand how it works
   
• the lines to vote are too long before and after work, they can't get off work to vote, or to try to maneuver a long line with children in tow is too difficult.
   
• they don’t have transportation to a polling station
   
• the hassle of getting an absentee ballot doesn’t seem worth it or they don’t know how to do it
   
• they think they will be more likely to be chosen for jury duty if they register to vote (they won't be, however, as juries are drawn from driver's license holders as well)
   
• they get sick on election day or have a family emergency
   
• they don’t care about politics; they have no motivation to care
   
• they don’t like any of their choices
   
• they think voting really does not matter
   
• bad weather 

I think that all but the last four bullets can be addressed by education, personal assistance and/or absentee ballots. And that should give you hope. And motivation to get involved to change things.

Another thing about this list, as noted by The Guardian: the obstacles to voting disproportionately affected black Americans.

Non-white Americans have typically had much lower turnout rates than white Americans. The Census Bureau asks eligible voters who don’t turn out to vote why they didn’t. Their responses show that white Americans are five times more likely than black Americans to say they didn’t vote simply because they “did not like candidates or campaign issues”. Meanwhile, black voters are more likely than white voters to cite obstacles to voting, such as “inconvenient polling place” or “transportation problems”.

According to the Center for American Progress,, “poll closures and limited voting hours disproportionately affect black voters”. And looking at early voting data, they found that trend was particularly noticeable in North Carolina, where there were 158 fewer early polling places in counties with large black communities and African American voter participation was down 16%.

Another reason, “registration problems”, was chosen by about 7% of eligible black voters and 5% of eligible white voters when explaining why they did not vote in the 2012 presidential election. Voter ID laws, which disproportionately affect black and younger voters according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, are often the reason for this.

So, now what?

Please get involved in efforts that help people register to vote. Contact your local Democratic Party HQ (or the party of your choice), the nearest League of Women Voters, any Black Lives Matter affiliates, the local chapter of the Urban League, etc., to find out how to join a register-to-vote effort. Ask your friends and family if they are registered to vote and, if they aren't, help them do so - many states allow people to register online. Make a goal: that you will, personally, register five new people to vote in 2017. You will register five more in 2018.

Help people get the identification they need to vote if they don't have such. Again, those aforementioned organizations may have such an effort but need more volunteers to help with it.

Look for efforts to help to get people to the polls. There are local elections and voter referendums in 2017 all over the USA, maybe in your city or county. Find out by asking any of your city council representatives (you can email them). Consider taking a vacation day on voting day so you can drive people to their polling stations. Or help people apply for and submit absentee ballots.

Except for filling suddenly vacant seats, the next elections for national Senators and Representatives in November 2018. It is vital that there is a huge voter turnout for these November 2018 elections, and the work has to start NOW for that to happen. Consider taking a vacation day on voting day so you can drive people to their polling stations or help with child care for someone needing to vote. Or sign up with the aforementioned organizations to help people apply for and submit absentee ballots - a great idea for people that have transportation, work or child care issues that might prevent them from being able to vote.

And one last thing, to those that say they don't vote because they don't like the choices: get over yourselves, buttercups. It is the height of white privilege to have the right to vote, the ability to vote, the credentials to vote, the registration to vote, and then not vote. I voted for Bernie in the primary, but damn right I voted for Hillary in November. Because it was far, far more important to try to prevent what's happening now than to be selfish and think non-participation sends a message. Because it doesn't. Not when it comes to voting.

In Five Weeks

In the last four and a half weeks I’ve:

• met one-on-one with a representative of a Latina empowerment nonprofit to talk about how to train their clients to be better story tellers regarding their experiences with oppression and harassment, so the stories can be captured and better communicated to the press, city officials, the police, etc. (they aren't being captured currently)
  
  
• met one-on-one with the police’s community outreach person to hear about his trainings on inherent bias in the police force and to talk about outreach to those that aren’t native English speakers
  
  
• attended a “Conozca sus derechos!” workshop at a local cultural center so I can learn how to refer immigrant and Latino community members regarding such
  
  
• gotten in touch with Right Wing Watch about two local activities I think they should know about
  
  
• attended a public meeting by one of my national Senators to learn what he’s doing on a national level and what he wants his constituents to be doing to back him up
  
  
• attended a public meeting by my local state representative to hear what she’s doing in the state capital and to hear what she wants us to be doing to back her up and let our voices be heard
  
  
• offered public testimony at a city council meeting in support of a sanctuary resolution
  
  
• attended the open house of the nearest Islamic mosque to hear Muslims, in their own words, tell me how to be a better ally
  
  
• attended the women’s march
  
  
• posted information about all of the above before it happened to encourage other people in my community to attend and participate as well
  
  
• expanded my resources on my web site about how to combat fake news (I’m one of the only people that has been researching and writing about how misinformation campaigns target government health and NGO development initiatives, and have been doing so since 2005)

I'm tired. What keeps me going? What YOU do. When you post to social media about what you're doing, about what you're outraged about, what you are seeing and experiencing. Please don't stop. 

But I confess I'll be taking a break at some point... 

Who is behind right wing bots?

A friend created a fake Facebook account around lunch time on Friday - yesterday:

• He used a right wing meme as a profile photo, and had a big USA nationalist cover photo (flag, etc.). 
• He marked his religion on this fake profile as “Jesus Christ.” 
• In his profile, he said he is divorced.
• In his profile, his high school is fake - it's somewhere in Kentucky, and has the name "Christian" in the title
• He “liked” Fox News, Breitbart, and some “we love Trump” account. 
• He put up a few status updates, all political in nature.
• Then he sent friend requests to 5 - 10 people who were posting right wing crap on those pages.
• He did NOT comment on any pages at all.

24 hours later - around noon time on Saturday:

• he sent out another 5 -10 friend requests, choosing people out of the comments section of the aforementioned pages, and had about 7 Facebook friends. 
• he added an implication on his profile that he’s an Army veteran and as having graduated from a fake Christian high school in Kentucky.

By 6 p.m. that evening, he has MORE THAN 100 FRIEND REQUESTS.

I want to note, that as of 6 p.m. Saturday evening:

• He hasn’t posted on any page other than his own. 
• He hasn’t engaged with anyone at all except to send about 20 friend requests. 
• And in the time it took me to type everything you have read up to this point, I have been informed that he had about 10 more friend requests.

Later that same evening: he went through 100 of his friend requests. He said that:

• Some say they are women, and have flowers and inspirational quotes in their profile. They also each have hundreds, even thousands, of friends. 
• Some are people that, in their status update, have only posts selling something: knives, ammunition, survival items, etc. 

Some things to consider:

• On his real profile, the one that uses his real name, location, job, etc., he does comment on public organization's status updates - for instance, on a news organization's facebook page status update.  
• On his real profile, he rarely gets friend requests - and when he does, they are usually from people he knows. 

So, my conclusion: There are bots - software programs - that do nothing but seeking out right wing people on Facebook. Some of the friend requests are from real people, some are from fake profiles, but most, and maybe all, are a result of bots that has been programmed specifically to find people that lean far right.

But WHO has created these bots?

FYI, this experiment by my friend was inspired by What goes on in a far-right Facebook filter bubble?, an article in Deutsche Welle about two TV reporters for Germany's ZDF broadcaster that created a fake account for an imaginary, and extreme, right wing German, and what happened regarding who reached out to that fake profile on Facebook.

From gutted to hopeful

I was gutted after the election. Gutted. To see a fascist win the election, and to hear people celebrate taking away people's health care insurance (including their own!), the sell-off of public lands, more guns, taking money away from public schools, closing women's health care clinics, oppressing Black Americans, marginalizing Mexican-Americans, and getting cosier with the current Russian dictator - it was too much to bear. I wasn't despondent because of one man - I was despondent because of more than 60 million voters in the USA - and those that didn't vote but were oh-so-pleased at what was happening, at the misery of others. I was mostly pissed off at white people, because even a majority of university-educated white women voted for this man.

But now?

The women's march - largest day of protests in US history - the refusal by any artist of substance and importance to perform in any way associated with the inauguration, the spontaneous protests regarding the Muslim ban, the massive donations to refugee-support agencies and the ACLU, the incredible activism against DeVos, people spontaneously cleaning off Nazi symbols on a New York subway car, all these people calling their senators and congressmen repeatedly and turning out for city council meetings in record numbers and filling their social media feeds with activism ideas and activities...

No, we didn't stop DeVos, who is profoundly unqualified to be in charge of this nation's education system. But Republican Senators are now exposed for not listening to their constituents. We've scared them - really scared them. Let's keep scaring them.

This is from a dear friend back in Kentucky, someone I've known since the 2nd grade:

"I was never one to care about politics, pay attention to politics, sadly to say 😞 However, I AM PAYING ATTENTION and Trump will make an activist out of me!!! I wish I paid attention sooner."

Dear friend, thank you for your energy. It's people like you, not me, that are going to make the real difference.

I do not lament all this political talk on Facebook. I relish it.

It's all given me hope. And rebellions are built on hope.

Don't be discouraged. Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint. We've much work to do before the midterm elections in November 2018. We've got voters to register and non-voters to inspire and districts and states to focus are energies on and turn from red to blue. And we've got human rights to defend.

Also see:

What I'll Be Doing Over the Next Four Years

Nonprofits to Support to Counter the Trump Presidency

appeal to white voters - or change their minds?

It wasn't voter turnout that gave Trump more elector votes than Clinton. As has been widely reported, it was all the white people that voted for Trump. But I fear how this fact is being interpreted. I'm already seeing people saying that Democrats need to abandon emphasis on social justice issues, to have a harder line about Muslims, to back off support for gay rights, and on and on, all in a quest to court more white voters.

This New York Times article points out that, while Hispanic voters are often credited with President Obama's victories, the reality is that President Obama would have won re-election without the Hispanic vote, because President Obama won the white vote. And Hillary Clinton didn't win that white vote. By contrast, in 2016, Trump made huge gains among white voters - working-class white voters.

Mr. Trump owned Mr. Obama’s winning message to autoworkers and Mr. Romney’s message to coal country. He didn’t merely run to protect the remnants of the industrial economy; he promised to restore it and “make America great again...”

Taken together, Mr. Trump’s views on immigration, trade, China, crime, guns and Islam all had considerable appeal to white working-class Democratic voters, according to Pew Research data. 

But the article misses the mark in saying that that the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage didn't play a role in Trump's, as well as his "law and order" diatribes - thinly disguised fear-based rhetoric that fuels fears of black and Latino Americans. One look at the newsfeeds of my many Facebook friends and family back in Kentucky and throughout the South and mid-West shows those positions on abortion, same-sex marriage and "law and order" were hugely important factors in decision-making regarding voting, along with those unrealistic comments about the coal industry and trade with China and policies about Muslims.

I've given up watching CNN, because during the election, CNN rarely called out Trump, or his supporters, on their lies. CNN was all about commentary by pundits, but not about journalism. But even a broken clock is right twice a day, and CNN's John Blake gets it right in this article, which notes:

Trump's triumph is now being roundly described as a revolt by white working-class voters; racism, sexism and religious bigotry had little, if anything, to do with it. People making this argument are following a script first honed by another group of Americans who made history disappear. After the Civil War, "Lost Cause" propagandists from the Confederacy argued the war wasn't fought over slavery -- it was a constitutional clash over state's rights, they said; hatred toward blacks had nothing to do with it.

It was an audacious historical cover-up -- to convince millions of Americans that what they'd just seen and heard hadn't really happened. It worked then, and some historians say it could work again with Trump.

I fear that Democratic Party leaders will encourage Democratic candidates to backtrack on social justice issues in a misguided effort to appeal to white voters... unless we get involved in our local Democratic Party committees, and pressure them to stay true to our values.

And here's news from another source: Trump lost every income bracket below $48,000 - including white people - and won every group above it.

I still don't know how to reach middle class whites who voted Trump - facts don't matter to them. BuzzFeed reported that fake news stories about the USA Presidential election this year generated more engagement on Facebook than the top election stories from 19 major news outlets COMBINED – that included major news outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and NBC News, and on and on. And then there's Pizzagate.

But if the Democratic Party abandons our values just to reach middle class white people that voted for Trump then, most certainly, millions of us will abandon that party.

Also see:

No, it wasn't about the economy

2017 & beyond

silence means approval

What does it mean to be "white" in the USA?

Dr. King confronted, was not passive, did not make people comfortable

Before it was an official holiday on the 3rd Monday of January, a lot of calendar companies put Martin Luther King Jr.'s name on January15, his actual birthday, and before I could read well, I could see words on my birthday on most calendars, and so I asked my mother what that was. I got an answer that made me realize that she, and the rest of my family, did not like this person very much, whoever this person was. Comments over the years let me know just how much family members did not like him.

Years later, I went to the school library and found out for myself who he was. And I learned about MLK, and Gandhi, and how pacifism is NOT passive, and that these were men who did NOT make people comfortable.

Dr. King criticized his country and paralyzed USA cities with campaigns of civil disobedience. And I love him for it. 

To watch white conservatives now use MLK for their own purposes, to try to say his legacy was about being passive and cooperative and patient, that his comments about "peace" and "love" were about not ever making people uncomfortable and not about confronting people, is insulting to his legacy. It's infuriating.

On April 12, King was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for violating a circuit court judge's blanket injunction against "parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing." He wrote an open letter written on April 16, 1963 to defend the strategy of nonviolent, active, uncomfortable resistance to racism. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King wrote, in part:

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice... Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

If you have never read this entire letter, do it today. And do not be passive. Do not think that this struggle now is about waiting for the "right" time, and about making sure everyone is comfortable and not rocking the boat and not confronting. Otherwise, you aren't really following Dr. King.

How White People Can Survive The Next Four Years

Other than pushing the "heart" icon on every tweet by the incoming President, what can white people in the USA - or anyone perceived as white - do to stay safe and happy for the next four years under the new administration? Here are some ideas:

1. When someone tries to talk about anything political, say things like "whoever is President doesn't really affect most people" and "I don't really care about politics right now" and "I'm not going to read or watch the news anymore." Say you're focused instead on "being positive," and "listening to everyone's point of view."
   
   
2. When your friends express fears about what the incoming President has said he will do, or when he actually does something that frightens them, like asking for the names of US government officials that have attended international conferences on climate change, or the names of US Department of State staff that have worked on gender-related initiatives, tell those friends that they are being "alarmist" and that they need to "take a break from worrying." You may have to stop hanging out with them to keep yourself safe from their worries.
   
   
3. When any friends or neighbors say they are not going to do anything that might be seen as appeasing racists that support Trump, or as appeasement regarding racist or fascist actions by the incoming Presidential administration, chide them for not being inclusive or tolerant or Patriotic, and for making other people "uncomfortable" by being intolerant. Tell them you love your country and that you "respect differences in opinion" no matter what and "want to keep the peace" and that you are committed to learning more about the "other" side's point of view, no matter what the point of view is, because the people that say those racist, fascist things, or the people that say that those who say such things "aren't really bad people," are members of your family, or are your neighbors or co-workers, and that means they aren't really serious about those comments. In fact, don't worry at all about saying anything that's even vaguely racist, let alone overtly, yourself, similar to what the incoming President has said about immigrants, black Americans, people of Mexican heritage and American Indians. Balk when friends try to bring up Nazi Germany.
   
   
4. Keep saying over and over that Trump voters aren't really bad people and that their votes were about the economy. Be in complete denial that data keeps showing, again and again, that Trump voters were NOT voting for the economy - they were voting for racism and sexism. Don't read this paper by political scientists Brian Schaffner, Matthew MacWilliams, and Tatishe Nteta that puts the blame back on the same factors people pointed to before the election: racism and sexism. Don't look at their research-based chart that shows that voters’ measures of sexism and racism correlated much more closely with support for Trump than economic dissatisfaction... a bulk of support for Trump — perhaps what made him a contender to begin with — came from beliefs rooted in racism and sexism. Specifically, the researchers conclude that racism and sexism explain most of Trump’s enormous electoral advantage with non-college-educated white Americans, the group that arguably gave Trump the election."
   
   
5. Don't donate to, volunteer for,or attend any event by any organizations that help immigrants, that advocate for living wages, that say anything about the "working poor" (no such thing!), that advocate for more affordable housing or imply that rents are too expensive for millions of people in the USA, that help women seeking abortion services, that help women access or learn about pregnancy prevention, or that are associated with Muslims in any way. Don't "like" the status updates of any such organizations on Facebook, or show any support for them on any social media.
   
   
6. Don't say anything supportive of "Black Lives Matter." Whenever someone says "Black Lives Matter," Say "All lives matter!" Use the words the incoming President has to talk about black neighborhoods : call them "war zones", and say that black Americans are "living in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs,", etc., but don't actually visit any black neighborhoods for yourself. Say similar things to what the incoming President has said about Black Americans, like “They didn’t come out to vote for Hillary. They didn’t come out. And that was a big — so thank you to the African-American community.” (citation). Discourage any black Americans from voting.
   
   
7. Do NOT associate with Muslims. Inter-faith events might be okay, to show you don't hate all of them, but don't go to any speeches by Muslims, especially those that express concern about things like a "Muslim registry."
   
   
8. Don't say anything negative about the coal industry, oil drillers, gas pipelines, brokers and financial advisers, real estate speculation, private prisons, Trump hotels, or Trump university. Do say negative things about the solar industry.
   
   
9. Talk about the failure of public schools and how you want federal money to go to private schools, which is where you send your children or want to or would want to, if you had school-aged children. Cite as one of your reasons for this that a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families (just above 50%); blame public schools for this.
   
   
10. Talk about how Scott Baio is really under-rated as an actor and political commentator. Lamet that Wayne Rogers died before he could vote for Trump. Go to concerts by Ted Nugent, Kid Rock and Azealia Banks, and praise them on social media. Buy lots of Duck Dynasty-related merchandise, and note that you have done so on social media. Disparage the lauded, legendary musical "Hamilton."
    
    
11. Don't go to Cuba, unless it's with a Christian organization that wants to convert people there to an evangelical religion, and if you do visit, then when you come back, talk about how horrible life is there and how pitiful Cubans are compared to people in the USA.
    
    
12. Post on social media with warm words about Vladamir Putin. Say he's a man "highly respected within his own country and beyond," as our incoming President has. Don't say anything about the 21 Russian journalists who have been murdered during Putin's tenure, who had written articles critical of his actions and policies. Don't say anything about the illegal war he's waging in Eastern Ukraine, his illegal annexation of Crimea and expulsion of Muslim Tatars from the peninsula, his illegal annexation of areas of Georgia, his staunch campaigning against what he calls "gay propaganda", or the forced evictions of people from their homes for the Sochi Olympics. Say you are grateful for the Russians illegally hacking into computers in the USA. Even better: travel to Russia and, when you return, no matter what you saw, say how great it was there and how everyone is happy and loves their President.  

Do even a few of these things and you will stay in the good graces of the Trump administration and all of his supporters. You will have a quiet, peaceful, stress-free life - at least for the next four years.

How you will sleep at night, however - that's another matter.

And if you can't tell this is satire, you're probably a Trump voter.

Also see:

• No, it wasn't about the economy
• silence means approval
• What does it mean to be "white" in the USA?
• A citizen of nowhere