Re: [Marxism] The U.S.elections and the working class [Was: turn to industry...]

[Ralph Johansen <mdriscollrj@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

    *   "Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx
      <mailto:jbustelo%40gmail.com>> wrote:

The statistics recently circulated in the news media about participation in
the November elections are mostly garbage. They are derived from the census
bureau's household survey for December where every four years they ask if
you voted. Invariably this shows that 5%-10% more people claim to have voted
than actually did....It is extremely difficult to create such
arguments convincingly NOT JUST due to the very high abstention rate in US
elections, but the varied causes of that abstentionism. They include the
"friction" that must be overcome to vote, which is variable depending on
gender, economic stratification, family structure and so on, which then
combines with the reality that these are all STATE elections, i.e., this
last time around voting was not the same act in California or New York AS in
Pennsylvania or Ohio as in Alabama or Mississippi.

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Q: What are the sources if any and for what it's worth for the best 
estimate of eligible voter population, abstention rate by category, 
(gender, economic stratification, family structure, ethnicity, and so 
on), voter preference by discrete issues, etc?

And what weight does all this have for left perspectives, when the 
reasons for voting/abstaining/indifference are divided among so many 
local, personal, national, global issues, all of which are supposed to 
be embodied in one candidate as against another. And then there's the 
non-participatory aspect of voting every 2 to 4 years for candidates not 
of our choosing, and on issues about which we have no meaningful input?

The whole process is so ridiculously inadequate, demeaning, incoherently 
divisive, so programmed, manipulated and marketed, that it is almost a 
total farce.

Ralph




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