2016 Postmortem

Between the voter ID laws and closed primaries, we turn people off from voting. If you're an independent and you actually do like a candidate early on, you have to know how closed primaries work (if you live in a closed primary state). Apparently even Trump's children didn't vote for him in the primaries. I have a couple of friends who wanted to vote for Bernie in the primary, but they didn't register in time. One had his address at the UPS store and was denied because of that. In my little bubble of South Florida, it's mostly Democrats, but it was pretty scary at the poles. During the primary there were no signs for Bernie Sanders. There were a few for HRC, but Trump signs were everywhere. People were lining up along US1 with Trump signs on weekends. When I went to vote for HRC in the general, it was almost all Trump signs and even less for HRC. I was not surprised on Wednesday morning when my wife told me Trump won. Perception is reality, and there have been so many false conspiracy theories leveled at HRC for decades that people believe them without evidence. I don't think that many people realize that voting is a right, not a privilege. Maybe if we offered some sort of tax incentive for voting and made it a national holiday it might get better?