WHY PEOPLE DO NOT VOTE???????

1. Personal Cost --> what does it cost you to vote (not monetary) 
2. Ex: A single mother who has 7 children is not likely to vote, because the effort to find a baby-sitter let alone find the time to go vote is more than it may be worth, her personal cost is her time and effort. 
3. Outcome = the same whether or not you vote --> many people feel like their vote does not matter and does not effect the overall outcome; based on that, the feel like why should I even vote then. 
4. Mobilization --> Political Parties are not a good at mobilizing voters as they once were. This is in part because of the laws that have been passed to prevent voter fraud, the Australian Ballot (i.e. the secret ballot), as well as reforms such as making political machines illegal. 
5. Felons or the Mentally-incompetant cannot vote --> In some states felons can apply to get their voting rights back, in other's they can never vote again. But if an individual is a convicted felon or diagnosed as mentally-incompetant, he or she cannot vote. 
6. Over 30% of people who are of voting age (18 or older) are not registered. --> If you aren't registered, you can't vote. As for why people aren't registered, one explanation is that the registration system is more complicated and difficult than it used to be. This is due to legislation passed to cut down on voter fraud. Also going back to number 2, if people don't feel like their vote counts, they logical thought would be something to the extent of: "Why bother taking the time to vote if it doesn't matter? And if I'm not going to vote, why bother even trying to register to vote; it would be rather pointless to do so. 
7. Voting Day is on a Tuesday --> Most Americans have jobs which they must attend to and take responsibility for if they have any hopes of receiving that golden paycheck. This also goes back to personal cost: by placing voting day on a Tuesday, some people would have to take time off from work to go down to the voting booth and cast their vote. For some that might mean loosing money due to being payed by the hour, our loosing his or her lunch hour. Both being very concerning propositions for many Americans and adequate reason to not vote. 
8. Voting Registration linked to Jury Duty --> In some states, your voter registration is how they choose jurors. Signing up to vote also signs you up to be called for jury duty. 
   Note: This is only in some states! 
9. We vote too often --> Being a democratic system, we defer the election of officials to the people; however, some municpalities or just local governments in general vote on a lot of positions. Sometimes individuals feel like voting on these positions doesn't matter. 
10. People are involved in different ways --> Some people are involved in politics in ways other than voting. They campaign, write letters, call people to remind them to vote, and contribute in other ways. Sometimes the individual feels as if he or she has contributed enough and that they do not need to contribute his or her vote. 
11. Some races are less competitive --> If there is only one candidate running or the candidate has been elected for a certain position for x number of years without being challenged, then many people do not see the need to vote. There is no competition, the person will get elected (what seems like) no matter why so there is no need to vote.