My computer is still having problems, so another short post today. I saw this graphic on Twitter this week, and thought it was interesting:

Our voting certainly leaves a wide margin of error with regards to public opinion.

What’s interesting of course is that we have no idea how those people would vote if they were forced to, though many people seem to think they know. From experiences in other countries it seems like it might increase support for left leaning policies and higher tax brackets. However in other countries it boosted fringe third parties, and doing away with it increased support for major parties. Other countries have not seen a difference.

Point being, a non-random sample doesn’t always tell you much about what’s not in the sample. Keep that in mind with any initiatives aimed at changing voting requirements.