The fact is in the 2022 US election, voter turn out was as low as 40% in some states and never anywhere even remotely in the same vicinity as Australian elections (which are well over 90% and a lot of the people who didn’t vote had an acceptable reason, such as living in another country without being a citizen there).
When you have elections being won by very slim margins, which has been the case lately in both countries, that makes a huge difference.
This changes the effect of negative campaigning (people still show up in Aus vs the US), but the idea is to dissuade people from voting for someone, rather than encourage them to vote for you. This might have a positive effect on votes for the party doing the negative campaigning, but I think it’s a poor definition of convincing someone to vote for you.
The fact is in the 2022 US election, voter turn out was as low as 40% in some states and never anywhere even remotely in the same vicinity as Australian elections (which are well over 90% and a lot of the people who didn’t vote had an acceptable reason, such as living in another country without being a citizen there).
When you have elections being won by very slim margins, which has been the case lately in both countries, that makes a huge difference.
This changes the effect of negative campaigning (people still show up in Aus vs the US), but the idea is to dissuade people from voting for someone, rather than encourage them to vote for you. This might have a positive effect on votes for the party doing the negative campaigning, but I think it’s a poor definition of convincing someone to vote for you.