There is an old saying by Mark Twain: âIf voting made any difference, they wouldnât let us do it.â, and I think this holds true to most of our western âdemocraciesâ on a grand scheme of things. Not in like the little regional votings in small towns or villages, but on a national level. Iâve checked different elections in the past in âwestern countriesâ and in many of these 40% percent or even more of the voting-age population didnât vote at all. Why is that? The answer is simple, each new election Politicians promise changes that will benefit the people but in the end they are just lying to them in order to get the most votes. Once elected they usually donât follow through on their claims and most people by now have figured this out and have resigned because they learned that in the end voting doesnât change a thing. The remaining 60% of the voting-age population or at least a big chunk of them are hopeless romantics who probably think that, âthis time it will be differentâ. This time they will follow through on their promises.
There are certainly more factors to it but this is I think the biggest issue of all.
Now since only 8 to 12% of the âvoting-age populationâ is voting at the moment one could argue that the described issue at top can be translated into our current âvoter apathyâ issue on the Optimism Collective. Now how do we change that?
The only option that comes to my mind is to eradicate this presumption by showing that their vote can actually make a difference and actually change something. But in order to do so we first need an incentive for people to vote. The different options coming to my mind can be found here.