Validated voters

Members of Pew Research Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel were matched to public voting records from national commercial voter files in an attempt to find records for voting in the 2016 and 2020 general elections. Validated voters are citizens who told us in a post-election survey that they voted in a given election and have a record for voting in that election in a commercial voter file. Nonvoters are citizens who were not found to have a record of voting in any of the voter files or told us they did not vote.

In an effort to accurately locate official voting records, up to three commercial voter files were searched for each panelist. The number of commercial files consulted varied by when a panelist was recruited to the ATP. Three files were used for panelists recruited in 2022 or before, while one file was used for panelists recruited in 2023. Altogether, files from four different vendors were used, including two that serve conservative and Republican organizations and campaigns, one that serves progressive and Democratic organizations and campaigns, and one that is nonpartisan.

Additional details and caveats about the validation of votes in 2016 and 2020 can be found in these methodological reports:

An examination of the 2016 electorate, based on validated voters
Validated voters methodology

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/10/10/pre-election-attitudes-methodology/

I believe you gotta go to each survey they’ve done for each of the widget to find out the source. I think they’re all based on the voter registration

Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives anymore.

They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?

—A.R. Moxon

So why are almost 90% of them concerned about immigration?

Because that’s the last thing they remember the TV box talking about before they went to the polls.

Seriously. A shitload of people literally do not have concrete political opinions of their own formed from serious rational deliberation. It’s just whatever is picked up as they go about their lives.

You get the media talking about the issue with raccoons invading trash cans all over the nation, and then that will be what is on their minds.

If 10 people are happily conversing at a table and one of those is an out and proud Nazi, there are 10 Nazis at the table

Most Nazis were just following orders. Many Hitler supporters and citizens of Nazi Germany though they were making things better. While being completely uninformed and having no idea of what was going on.

Worst of all. Trump’s white nationalist white supremacist and Nazi supporters weren’t a deal breaker. The truth is the Nazis and the people of Nazi Germany were not monsters. They were people. There are no monsters. Only people. Exactly like Trump supporters. So the comparison is valid and apt whether or not you are comfortable with it.

Evil is just banal. The cruelty that one does to cover up their own incompetence. When their ignorance is just as valid as your knowledge. Call them for what they are.

I think of it like this:

Lacking fundamental critique of the political economy, they believe the liberal narrative of the market and democratic institutions would bring about a fair or good economy.

Either you stop believing that, wich comes with quite a reorientation towards your own society, history and biography with significant social consequences ("what are you, a socialist now?) and mental stress (radical opposition is not exactly calming).

…or you assume there is something disturbing your otherwise functioning order and ideology from the outside. Damn those immigrants, if it it wasn’t for them there would be more jobs, higher wages, less crime and I’d finally get all that trickle down.

This latter is the energetically more efficient choice for each individual, and importantly, this really is true - as long as there is no collective perspective of systemic change, wich of course in turn only materializes when people make their bet for the possible, not the actual.

This perspective doesn’t really exist atm, it’s not in sight and nobody talks about it. This is the result of anticommunism and a massive failure of the left.

We need to be couragous and make room for utopian thought while giving opportunities to experience and try solidaric socialization. This makes not being idiot a convincing alternative.

Technically you can be concerned about immigration without being a fascist. Fascist doesn’t seem to have a clear agreed definition