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There’s also no evidence that increased turnout would have had the same result.

What seems to be overlooked in these conversations is the skill with which American voters have been disenfranchised by partisan forces.

It’s easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many Americans.

In fact there was an extensive analysis of the election by Democrat pollster David Shor, who found that 100% turnout would have resulted in an even larger Trump win, by 4.8 points: https://www.vox.com/politics/403364/tik-tok-young-voters-202...

This has been the pattern for awhile now. The pool of politically unengaged people are especially Trumpy compared to regular voters: https://abcnews.go.com/538/vote-back-trump/story?id=10909062...

That an enormous sample size. Statistically a complete participation should be very close, so the burden of proof lies with those who claim it would be different. Regardless of whether Trump would have won or not, that is a clear indication of evenly split public sentiment. So we still get to justly reap the fruits of our collective choices. There is no exoneration by whimsically dreaming of improbable alternatives.

I don't think it is was that hard to vote. That is a straw man to avoid facing the hard truth of American apathy. Now next election, perhaps we can have a conversation on that point. Things a trending rather poorly right now.

The electorate self-selected into voters and non-voters, it wasn't a random sample. Some chose to go to the polls and some chose to stay at home. Voter preferences don't say a lot about the preferences of non-voters, who've already shown they choose differently.

There’s also one party that disproportionately targets specific voter demographics for suppression.

This is very interesting but how would turnout and choice change if historically disenfranchised and suppressed communities had equal access to the polls?

<< It’s easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many Americans.

I hesitated while reading this part, because I wholly agreed with the first 2 sentences. Do you mean physically difficult in terms of barriers to voting or making a less direct comment about the usefulness of that vote? If the former, I think I disagree compared to other countries ( and the levels of paperwork needed ). If the latter, I would be interested to hear some specifics.

Such as?

"I don't think it is that hard to vote"

Says a person commenting on HN that almost certainly isn't in a demographic that it has been made intentionally difficult to register, stay registered, and get time off an hourly job to stand in line for hours to vote.

Physically more difficult. Purging voter rolls. Moving polling locations. Voter ID requirements. Restrictions on mail in ballots. Etc.

It shouldn't be that hard for you to show some evidence things would be different then. There is nothing indicating a stronger preference to vote has anything at all to do with which direction you lean. More and less does not equal right and left, so the burden of proof is on those who claim it is relevant. Yet polling indicates things would have gone pretty much just as they went.

I did not say 'is', I said 'was'. I have not seen studies or even many anecdotal stories indicating people think it was too hard for they themselves to vote. I have seen a lot of people saying that about other people, but as of 2024, attempts to disenfranchise voters had not been very well done. I also don't think having ID is a high bar, which is what a large amount of the noise has been about. Many, many democratic countries have this requirement [1]. Coupled with other things it can become a problem, but when anybody says voter id itself is a problem, I can't take them very seriously.

I however repeat, that was last year. Things could very well take a dramatic turn for the worse.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_identification_laws

I willing to give you moving polling locations, but with that minor concession.

Can you explain to me like I am 5 why those are bad things? For a simple person like myself, one would think, data accuracy, voting system integrity, and verifiability would be of use and value to everyone.

I don't know if voters and non-voters have the same political leanings. It isn't something I've ever looked into. My observation was merely that measures of statical confidence assume random samples. Extrapolating from a non-random sample can give odd results. But this isn't a research paper, so it doesn't much matter.