If Democracy Is Dying, It’s From Neglect

Sure, Republicans are trying to kill democracy. The question is why they’re bothering.

Consider Ohio where, if you read the news accounts, the big story is J.D. Vance’s comeback win in his Ohio primary, supposedly on the back of a Trump endorsement.

This narrative is bullshit. Yes, it’s true, but it misses the big picture. The story is that another Republican performance artists will become a U.S. Senator based on the support of under 5% of Ohio’s registered voters.

There are just under 8 million registered voters in Ohio, and every one of them was eligible to vote in Ohio’s open primary system, because the state doesn’t register voters by party — their party, on official records, is the one they voted for in the last primary, and it doesn’t bind them to that party this time around.

Officially, at least before this year (couldn’t find 2022 stats), Ohio had 947,027 Democrats, 836,080 Republicans and 6,196,547 unaffiliateds, because roughly 75 percent of Ohioans don’t bother to vote in primaries, a figure that’s been consistent for years.

Here’s what that means by the numbers: J.D. Vance won what was essentially a three-way GOP primary with 32.2% of the vote to Josh Mandel’s 23.9%. Almost no outlet outside Ohio even mentioned Matt Dolan, a “traditional” Republican who finished a whisker behind Mandel at 23.3%; I suppose he didn’t say anything outrageous enough to make the headlines. More fool him.

Those percentages instead of actual numbers, though, Vance’s win looks convincing — he won by 8%. But look at the actual vote totals.

J.D. Vance captured the votes of 340,991 people. Mandel got 253,051. Dolan got 247,042. Add in the minor candidates and barely over 1 million people voted in the Republican primary (another half-million voted in the Democratic primary).

I hope my point is by now obvious: Democracy isn’t dead because Republicans are killing it. It’s dead because the majority of Americans can’t be bothered to keep it alive.

Primary elections, even hotly contested ones — Ohio’s GOP Senate candidates spent more than $66 million on the race, or about $66 per vote — routinely draw only 25% of registered voters. As a result, J.D. Vance will be Ohio’s next senator because he won the votes of under 4.3% of Ohio’s eligible voters.

That’s not voter restriction, it’s voter disinterest. Republicans don’t have to disenfranchise voters who disenfranchise themselves.