• jerkface@lemmy.ca
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      30 days ago

      Yes. Conservatives vote out of a sense of duty. They don’t really pay attention to politics. They vote every opportunity, no matter the circumstances. The 30% who always vote conservative are unaffected by the bullshit that makes progressives throw their hands up and walk away from it all. Progressives vote when they are motivated to vote, and can just as easily be demotivated. It’s shitty and we need to do better.

    • Eiri@lemmy.ca
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      30 days ago

      Statistically speaking, Republican party voters are more white, more male, less poor*, less educated, more rural and older than Democrat party voters.

      Making an effort to reduce a certain demographic’s ability or willingness to vote will necessarily affect one party more than the other. As an example, if you add hoops to jump through, people who are already at their limit, working a zillion hours a week, are unlikely to do it, while the average retiree will probably not mind.

      *It’s complicated. Republican voters tend to be middle/upper-middle income, while Democrat voters tend to be lower/lower-middle income OR high income, leaving the middle for the Republicans.

    • ToastedPlanet@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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      29 days ago

      Each state’s Electoral College vote total is a combination of their House and Senate seats. Low population states are overrepresented in the Senate because each state gets two seats no matter their population. The House of Representatives has been capped at 435 seats which means lower populated states tend to be overrepresented there as well.

      https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/435-representatives/

      Republicans tend to do well in rural areas which typically have low populations. Democrats tend to do well in cities which typically have high populations. This pans out to Democrats wining states that have high populations and Republicans winning states with low populations.

      Since Republican voters tend to be from areas with low population they tend to be overrepresneted in the Electoral College. This means Democrats need high voter turnout to compensate for their voters being underrepresented. This is how Trump won the Electoral College in 2016 despite losing the popular vote.