DO YOU THINK THIS COULD HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE CONDITION THIS COUNTRY IS IN ??????

How many people actually know (research) candidates on the ballots when they vote?

A fair answer: not nearly as many as people like to think.

There is no perfect national number, because “know” and “research” are hard to measure. But the evidence points roughly like this:

Top of the ballot: A majority know at least the basic names and party labels, especially for president, governor, senator, or major congressional races. But even there, detailed knowledge is shaky. A 2024 YouGov knowledge poll found that many Americans knew broad facts, but large shares were unsure or wrong about basic election/political facts. For example, about 40% either did not know or were wrong about which party controlled the House or Senate at that time.

Local and down-ballot races: This is where knowledge drops hard. Pew found that only 45% of U.S. adults said it was easy to find the information they needed to make voting decisions in local elections, compared with 59% for presidential elections. Only 34% were extremely or very interested in local election news, compared with 54% for presidential election news.

Feeling truly informed locally: One 2024 poll reported that only 28% of Americans felt “very informed” about local elections. That sounds about right to me for people who actually dig into local candidates rather than just vote party line, name recognition, yard signs, mailers, or what a friend says.

Whole-ballot research: My best honest estimate is this:

Maybe 50–65% know something meaningful about the major top-of-ticket races.

Maybe 25–40% do some real research on local/down-ballot races.

Probably only 10–20% carefully research most or all candidates on the entire ballot.

The giveaway is undervoting. In many elections, a lot of people vote for president or governor and then leave lower offices blank. U.S. Vote Foundation says that in a typical presidential year, a third or more of voters do not fill out the entire ballot.

Most voters are not truly researching the full ballot. A minority are. Many people vote by party, a familiar name, a few headlines, union/church/family recommendations, campaign signs, endorsements, or gut feeling. The farther down the ballot you go — judges, school board, township, county drain commissioner, local proposals — the fewer people really know who or what they are voting for.