> The remaining 43% voted for 'I'll take whoever wins'.
Or they lived in some of those insane regions where only a single voting office served thousands of people and couldn't affording standing outside for 8+ hours, or they couldn't get a tuesday off (sane countries allot a whole weekend for voting), or they couldn't afford to get sufficient id to satisfy their state's demands. (Yes, i know, mail-in voting is a thing, but i'm sure there are good reasons to keep people from using that as well.)
There's plenty of reasons otherwise eligible voters didn't vote beyond "didn't care" and many of them are "they were prevented from doing so by institutional problems".
only a single voting office served thousands of people and couldn't affording standing outside for 8+ hours
Really, that's how it is in US? Any semi-decent country is responsible for creating comfortable conditions for anyone to vote.
Here in Poland there were 28k voting offices for 30 million of potential voters, so there's on average little more than 1k voters per office. It is almost impossible to be waiting in line for more than 5-10 minutes, even in the most crowded offices.
Elections are mostly regulated at the state and county level, which causes a lot of disparities in registration law and polling place funding. Invariably every election during the non-stop coverage, you'll see the pictures of the long lines wrapped around blocks in cities throughout the country, but especially in Republican controlled swing states. I think it's an utter failure of our society that we can't hold elections with fair and accessible voting methods.
Yes, that is really how it is. State legislatures controlled by Republicans do everything in their power to disenfranchise minority voters. This includes gerrymandered districts, removing early voting days, not allowing early voting on Sundays, requiring an ID to vote, and calling into question the validity of the voter registration of minorities.
Sadly, yes, but it's not everywhere. Jerrymandering is used by both parties to lock-in districts for particular candidates. Then voter suppression is used to keep people away from the polls, mostly used by the old Jim Crowe states, this nonsense dates back to slavery from which the US is still recovering.
'Democracy in America', by Alexis de Tocqueville is still about as valid today as when it was written. In that he describes this scene where townspeople literally shoot at a farmer to keep him away from the polls. Not all that different than the gun toting individuals who show up to polling places today to 'protect' the vote.
Or they lived in some of those insane regions where only a single voting office served thousands of people and couldn't affording standing outside for 8+ hours, or they couldn't get a tuesday off (sane countries allot a whole weekend for voting), or they couldn't afford to get sufficient id to satisfy their state's demands. (Yes, i know, mail-in voting is a thing, but i'm sure there are good reasons to keep people from using that as well.)
There's plenty of reasons otherwise eligible voters didn't vote beyond "didn't care" and many of them are "they were prevented from doing so by institutional problems".