CAN THIS MEME BE TRUE?
Sadly, the answer is no. Although recurring often, this text and its variants (there is no known source) implies that (discounting ranked-choice voting) the more voters who vote in the U.S. two-party system, the greater the chance of a Democratic win. It sounds very encouraging, but consider the logic. The corollary assertion must be that most voters who don’t vote, are Democrats. It is impossible to collect any data on voters who don’t vote, and even if it could be done, the percentage of Democrats in that group would vary from region to region and from election to election.
Clearly, the inspiration for this meme comes from contrasting party policies. Democrats support voter inclusiveness while Republicans generally push for voter exclusion, under the assumption that those who would get excluded are Democrats. Although we may have a good intuitive idea of micro-voting patterns and voting lethargy on a local area basis, just about every state or national election holds big surprises after the final count. Simply put, both parties make too many assumptions about voter groups.
Turnout is great, but voter education, combined with reducing the unwise control of elections by party leaders, is what counts. If Democrats want more voters, they need to permit candidates to run who the voters want.
For more information, see: “Does High Voter Turnout Help One Party?”
