I think the availability of polling is a major reason why people don’t bother to vote. If they’re reasonably sure their person will win, they’re less likely to bother. Or, if it looks like it’s going to be a blowout and they don’t think one vote will matter, same thing.
Voting day should be a federal holiday, there should be a tax incentive to vote like in Australia, and polling reporting should be delayed by 1 month.
I agree with all of this completely! Maybe someday we can catch up to other countries…
For transparency, I’m Canadian, but our situation is pretty much the same: Far right candidate projected to win next election, “meh, status quo centrist” in power now, people letting projections deter them from voting, primitive “electoral college” lite making your votes less effective based on where you live, etc etc…
We do trend towards “looking over the fence” politically. If Biden’s step-down gamble pays off, it’s possible we could get a similar thing to happen here which could be good. So, we’re all watching and hoping that we don’t end up neighbouring a country with a fascist leader…
I hope for yours and the world’s sake that it works out on both sides of the border. I fear the US has a lot of negative influence on the rest of the world. Like if there was no president trump, how would elections have gone around the world the past few years? It feels like we set trends sometimes and some of them are amazingly bad