The weather on Election Day can affect the outcome. I suspect the Republican National Committee hires Hopis to do a rain dance.
The New York Times reports:
Multiple studies have shown that bad weather on Election Day can decrease turnout, which in turn tends to help Republicans, because the groups most likely to be deterred from voting are those that tend to vote Democratic.
Bad weather may even influence voters to vote Republican.
Multiple studies have shown that bad weather on Election Day can decrease turnout, which in turn tends to help Republicans, because the groups most likely to be deterred from voting are those that tend to vote Democratic. But a more recent study, published last November in the journal American Politics Research, found that the political effects of Election Day storms may go beyond turnout. Among voters who do turn out, one of the study’s co-author said, slightly more tend to vote Republican when the weather is bad.
“Not just whether to vote but how to vote can be influenced by the weather,” said the co-author, Yusaku Horiuchi, a professor of government at Dartmouth. “When the weather is bad, people’s mood is affected. People tend to be more risk-averse. When people become more risk-averse, people are more likely to be more conservative, and therefore they’re likely to vote for the Republicans instead of the Democrats.”
The first effect is very insulting to Democrats: they won’t go out in the rain to vote.
The second effect is insulting to Republicans: they judge the state of the Union by the state of the weather.
Perhaps the Democrats should try to move elections to May, a fairly dry and cheerful month in most of the U.S.
I remember after the Democratic debacle in 2016, various pundits tried to come up with a rational way of restricting the electorate to those who had a faint idea about how the government worked – the modern version of a literacy test. But every way, such as requiring an elementary civics test (e.g. name the three branches of government) would end up eliminating large numbers of Democratic voters and guaranteeing a permanent Republican majority, so that idea was dropped.
Speaking of restricting the electorate. After the Civil War blacks received the franchise. In the deep South violence was used to intimidate black voters.
Baltimore was much more civilized. Before the general election, white Democratic political bosses would meet with the black Republican bosses. The white bosses would tell the black bosses that the white bosses would pay the black bosses for every black who did NOT vote. The black bosses would then sponsor picnics way out in the country and offer free excursions on the Bay. After the election they would go over the voting lists with the white bosses and receive their pay for every black non-voter.
Corrupt – yes, but in fairly civilized fashion. I am not even sure it was illegal.
Nowadays the Democrats think they are being defeated by angry white working class men. Perhaps the Democrats could sponsor all day demolition derbies and Nascar races, with free beer, from 7 AM to 8 PM on election day. This would certainly lead to an era of good feelings, if nothing else.