Fake Democracy?

About half of eligible voters turn out in the United States. That places us 29th out of 32 developed democratic nations in the proportion of people who vote.

If we truly wanted more people to vote we would do what democracies with high rates of voter participation do. In these nations, all citizens are automatically registered to vote. They do not hold elections on Tuesdays when most people are working. They vote on Saturday or Sunday, or they make election day a holiday.

Does our system want everyone to vote? Something appeared on the internet today that yelled No! to that question. It stated:

A few weeks ago, over 300 million lottery tickets were sold in 4 days. Within hours of the drawing, lottery officials knew how many winning tickets were sold and where the winning tickets were sold, down to the specific store locations.

Four days after voting has closed, some voting officials don’t know how many people voted, how they voted, who they voted for, or what the accurate results are.

The U.S. election system is broken on purpose.

Happy Thanksgiving.