It’s true: If you don’t vote, then you don’t exist

In every one of his speeches Bernie Sanders claims that the little people have been ignored by the system. And now there is more evidence that he’s right.

Stanford political scientist Bradley Spahn studied the records that political parties use when they’re contacting voters. And he found this mass of political dark matter: people who never vote don’t subscribe to magazines or newspapers and, therefore, never get into a party database. Which means no one doorbells them, or sends them a campaign flyer, or calls them up to ask their opinion.

I know &#8212 sounds like a blessing to most of us.

But Spahn says it’s not fair that these people are shut out.

“So they are more likely to be minorities, they are poorer, they are younger, and they are dramatically more supportive of the Democratic Party,” Spahn said. “And they don’t vote.”

And if you’re a Republican you’re saying, “thank goodness!”

But if Bernie Sanders wants his revolution, he’ll need to find these people and register them. Which is difficult and expensive. And at some point you have to ask &#8212 as I asked Bradley the political scientist &#8212 how unfair is it that these people are left out? Especially if they won’t take the trouble to register?

“I don’t disagree with that. I would say that America as a country has made a choice to make it relatively difficult to be registered to vote,” Spahn said. “Other western democracies will just put you on the roles no matter what. If you are not on the roles it’s much easier to get on them so you can just show up at the polling place and vote that day.”

Wow. Just show up and vote! Imagine that.