Often the Cynic asks voters why they voted, but what about the group of people that didn’t? Or what about the students and community members that did vote, but begrudgingly? The Cynic created an anonymous survey to capture the perspectives of this underrepresented group. The following are some of their responses.

• “Both major party candidates have caused irreversible damage to the people. Biden is an unapologetic architect of American mass incarceration that disproportionately affects BIPOC and a war hawk who strongly supported the illegal Iraq War that murdered over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. He’s pushed for cuts to Social Security and Medicare throughout his career in the Senate and his healthcare plan still leaves tens of thousands of Americans to die each year from lack of healthcare, while also still allowing insurance companies to withhold life-saving treatments from sick Americans in the name of additional profit. Trump, on the other hand, is a fascist who doesn’t believe in democracy and who doesn’t care about the deaths of over 200,000 Americans from COVID-19. Every law and executive order he’s signed into law has been to the detriment of the American people collectively, and particularly to all minority groups.”

• “There’s no point. Biden’s not going to fix anything any more than Obama did or Trump would. The country will continue to value the economy and profit over human life, the environment will continue to deteriorate because we can’t slow our consumption and won’t enforce change. This country doesn’t value what is important, so what the fuck does it matter? Same happy meal, different toy.”

• “Voting for Trump in a blue state has little effect.”

• “I was unable to vote as I never received my mail-in ballot or the reissuement ballot from Ohio. Basically nothing I could do about the situation unfortunately.”

• “The two main candidates are both idiots but voting for anyone else is as good as not voting.”

• “Due to weird complications, I am a Massachusetts resident with a Connecticut driver’s license living in Vermont. I could not vote in Vermont or Massachusetts. My family is against mail-in voting, so when I requested my mail-in ballot to my home in Ct., they threw it out. I was unable to go vote in person in Ct., and therefore could not vote at all.”

• “This election is rigged. Regardless of political orientation, there will be large amounts of upset and riots from both sides. I choose not to side with either Biden or Trump or the libertarian candidate due to their lack in morally guided decisions. I will not support a corrupt party, I will not help incite rioting post-election and I will not be a member of a voting society that is so divided to the point of unrest.”

• “I’m an out-of-state student and got really confused as to where and how to vote, either at home or here. I kinda wanted to but I think it’s too late now.”

• “If Vt. was a swing state I would vote for Biden. However, it’s not, so realistically my vote means basically nothing. I don’t like either candidate because of how polarizing they are, and I know no matter who wins, they will divide the country even further apart than ever. And I don’t want to be a part of making that happen.”