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I'd be interested to see what the 600 "bullet ballots" in Maricopa County are all about. As a hotbed of election denialism and a swing state it'd be interesting to see if there really were that many people who were only interested in voting for president and nothing else.
Talk to people. This is actually fairly common. Many people don't follow politics closely enough to make informed decisions about ballot questions, and plenty of others simply don't care. Lots of people couldn't name the mayor of their town, their US Representative, or even their Senators. Plenty of people will go there to vote for one thing and ignore the rest because they either don't know or simply can't be bothered.
If I recall reading correctly, I think the average for this is about 1-2% of voters per state. I know there's some controversy because that number is higher in battleground states, but these are Trump voters we're talking about here, and I could easily see them turn out in droves for their god-king and ignore the rest of the ballot, because the only thing they cared about was getting Trump back into office. No reason for a Trump voter to do that in California, because it isn't going to matter. Pennsylvania is a completely different story, which is probably why we're seeing it happen so much in battleground states.
It's wildly worse than you think. The number of bullet ballots in swing states is around 5-12% of the total vote counts. It's a statistical anomaly that ONLY exists in the swing states. Other things to consider:
There's odd, and then there's statistical improbability. We're boarding on fucking bizarre, and it's shocking that people aren't making a bigger deal than this.
Really agree with your final statement. I've been saying since the day after the election that it's fucking weird how quickly it was accepted that he won after they tried to steal it last time and for the last couple years have been openly bragging that they had better plans this time and Trump repeatedly telling his voters that they don't need to bother, he has the votes already, they don't have to bother voting.
I'm not saying it was stolen. I have no evidence it was (none that it wasn't either), but the fact that everyone just accepted it, immediately, without even trying to look into the possibility is incredibly disappointing.
I like how Jon Stewart put it this week:
"Republicans rely on loopholes, while Democrats rely on norms."
His whole thing this week was begging the Democrats to fight, to start getting dirty, throwing punches, to basically just not roll over.
But he kept reiterating the Dems need to get over the norms, they need to stop relying on the norms. He cited the hypocrisy of not approving Garland, but rushing through Amy Coney Barrett, and showed how the Dems brought McConnell's own words to the floor of the Senate.
"And thus, Amy Coney Barrett, head hung, was forced to return to her homestead in-- Wait, what's that? They didn't give a fuck?!"
Or the Parliamentarian not allowing something Biden proposed to move forward, and Biden just rolled over. "Oh, uh, we didn't know about that rule."
I'm incredibly disappointed too, they're supposed to fight for us, regardless of circumstances, and we get... The response we get. I completely agree the GOP and Trump were telling us they were going to steal it, and had precedent that clearly tried to last time, and the Dems just... Accepted it. The GOP launched dozens of lawsuits and recounts over handfuls of ballots, but the Dems have just moved on despite these statistical anomalies.
Not a great way to maintain your already waning support among your voting base: telling them they need to fight and support them in their fight, and then they just stop fighting.