Who are the Voters?

It is 8:59AM on Friday, November 6th. The majority of the world as we know it is awaiting the decision of the Electoral College because here in America, the popular vote doesn’t matter. For reference, Joe Biden is ahead of Donald Trump (prior to all votes being counted and according to a quick search on Google) by 3,887,859 votes. YES – almost 4 million MORE people have voted for Biden over Trump.

For those of you who are not as familiar with the Electoral College, there is a ton of information if you search for it but here is a great article from BBC that spells it out. The gist of it is this, “The number of electors from each state is roughly in line with the size of its population. Each state gets as many electors as it has lawmakers in the US Congress (representatives in the House and senators).”

If you are still confused as to why the popular vote doesn’t matter, so are a lot of us Americans.

If you haven’t noticed, I lean (let’s be real, I AM) Democratic. I am a 32-year-old, white, straight woman who grew up right outside of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota. I have a Masters degree (and a TON of loans to show for it), a decent job and live in Boston, MA (with three roommates because I cannot afford to live on my own). My parents were adamant in teaching my brother and I that ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc. should NOT determine the worth of someone. That those things DO NOT mean that they are “less than” us. They taught us to respect law enforcement but still stand up for human rights. They taught us to make sure we do our research and question everything. What does all this mean?

It means that I fight for (FYI – this is a condensed list):

Black Lives (and the lives of all BIPOC, this means police reform as well)
Women’s rights (#mybodymychoice)
ALL the same rights for the LGBTQ+ community
The earth (climate change is real!)
Science and the rights to healthcare
Immigration rights
A strong education system (see why below)

You will notice that all of those things are essential BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. You are correct, I fight for basic human rights. Does that blow your mind?!

What blows my mind is that, as of today, ~48% of this country does NOT fight for human rights. That means ALL human rights, not just some.

I should mentioned that I also believe in the right to bare arms but that there needs to be regulations. Minimum hours of training/education, mental health evaluation by a non-biased course (not someone from the NRA), and limitations on the type of guns you can purchase. No one needs an automatic gun. Period.

I wanted to understand the demographics of voters to see who these 48% of people are. Thankfully, NPR published the survey results from interviews with more than 110,000 people across the United States: Understanding the 2020 Electorate: AP VoteCast Survey

Here are the results.

NOTE: the following screenshots were taken from the NPR article. The opinions below those are my own.

Shout out to the Millennials! It gives me hope for the future to see that a majority of people below 45-years-old voted blue. It also doesn’t surprise me Boomers are majority Trump.

This is why we need education. This is why we need funding for education systems. This is why we need. This is why we need affordable colleges/universities. This is why we need more opportunities for people to attend post secondary options. This is why we need to put a higher emphasis on education.

This should not shock you. When you grow up and continue to live in a small town, you are not exposed to the beauty of the world. The beauty in the differences of others. I have so many other things I want to say about this but I won’t. Yet.

All I have to say about this to the 24% of people who don’t think racism is a serious problem is fuck you.

All I have to say about this for the 49% of people who think that COVID is under control/somewhat under control is also a big fuck you. Apparently 233,000 dead people isn’t a huge deal.