Veterans: Our Vote does Matter

ByBenjamin Krause
17 Comments

Veterans voting bloc

I received a comment today in LinkedIn about the veteran vote.

The reader chimed in:

“But the media have blamed the Republicans yet all the rotten things described in the DAV discussion and elsewhere cannot be done by any Republican rather are done by the executive branch of government.

“Veterans are such a small percentage of the population that someone in the White House did use that $5 calculator to figure out that they can be hurt badly with no affect.”

Is this true, that veterans are a small percentage?

To find out, I took a quick trip to Wikipedia. My goal was to learn how big the Independent Vote was and to learn the overall size of the American voting population.

When it comes to initial research, you don’t need to immediately run to only scholarly journals. A quick look at Wiki could be used to merely verify if your topic has legs.

So here, I am going to see if veterans are a small percentage of the vote. I define small as being a number that will hold no weight. I do not know the percentage of veterans who actually vote, but I can find out how many veterans there are.

It is commonly known that veterans are around 22 million. We also know that around 85% of veterans have families through marriage and probably have children. Again, my goal here is not to be exact. I just want to know if veterans are a small percentage.

The answer is probably, “No, veteran are significant if they vote.” Therefore, veterans are not a small percentage that lacks any political weight, if we vote together.

For years, veterans have been divided and misled into believing our voice is a small one. However, my back of the envelope calculation shows we make up the following:

  • 10% of total voting age population
  • 20% of the total number of voters
  • 33% if you factor in family members

When you look at these numbers in context, this voting bloc could be significant:

  • 2012: Romney lost by 5 million votes
  • 2008: McCain lost by 10 million votes
  • 2004: Kerry lost by 3 million votes
  • 2000: Gore lost by – well Gore technically won by 500,000

Here should be your take away. If veterans voted together every election, we would have the power of the Independent Vote. Let’s call it a new Veterans Voting Bloc.

I’ll write more on this later, but the mere numbers above should give some of you hope that veterans can actually change the country for the better.

ABOUT FOUNDER

Benjamin Krause is an award winning veterans rights advocate, attorney, and investigative reporter fighting to advance the rights of veterans for more than a decade. His advocacy work has been featured in national publications such as Bloomberg News, Foreign Policy Magazine, Washington Times, Fox News, CBS, NBC, Star Tribune and more.

Author of the Voc Rehab Survival Guide for Veterans, Benjamin earned degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Minnesota Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude.

Contact Benjamin at Krause Law, PLLC with any legal questions.
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17 Comments

    1. Bachmann and Paul Ryan are RINOS. They are not conservatives. I agree they vote against veterans’ interests.

      However, please give me facts about how Shinseki’s deliberate inability to get disabled veterans their compensation not make him an “other”? Same with Obama. How does Obama’s targeting of veterans during this government shutdown not make him an “other”?

      The Republicans have passed legislation to fund the VA. However, Obama and Reid won’t sign it because they do not want Obamacare to be repealed. You know, the same Obamacare that has been proven to be unaffordable to millions of Americans who lost their jobs, health insurance, doctors, privacy, and protections against unreasonable taxation. It is OUR veterans’ families that are being horribly impacted by Obamacare.

      The only thing happening in Washington right now is Obama, Reid, and the RINOS punishing veterans to make political points. Tell me when you are ready to stop being a political hostage to their BS, and maybe we can strategize a grassroots effort to stop these Big Three from ever hurting veterans again.

      1. “However, please give me facts about how Shinseki’s deliberate inability to get disabled veterans their compensation not make him an “other”?
        I am not the one making claims that Gen. Shinseki, who served his country with honor and distinction, is deliberately sabotaging the VA. You are. The burden of proof is on you, and you have no evidence. Gen. Shinseki does not fund the VA. Neither does the president. The congress does.

        “The Republicans have passed legislation to fund the VA”.
        No, The whole congress is supposed to vote on a budget, part of which is the VA, and lots of Republicans want to privatize the VA. See here,
        https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/11/mitt-romney-veterans-health-care-privatization_n_1089061.html
        The Texas republican party has made privatizing the VA part of their platform. The VA should be a public service to veterans, like military service. It should not be a for profit business. Who do you suppose will pay for the profits?

        The ACA is not hurting veterans. A minority in congress is.

      2. After listening to Shinseki today, it was no surprise that he blamed conservatives for the shutdown.

        As an Obama political appointee, he should be ashamed of himself for insisting that the only way veterans can be paid is if ALL DEPARTMENTS were funded.

        The flaw in his argument is that Congress did fund all departments, except Obamacare, and even the latest CR would have funded Obamacare, but only have delayed the individual mandate for a year.

        So Shinseki’s argument is specious at best.

        Except now, Obama and Reid have cowardly refused to even accept the Republican’s attempt to compromise.

        Shinseki is obviously using the government shutdown to place a major hurt on the veterans that he is entrusted to help.

        Furthermore, as the Secretary, he failed to place into motion months earlier a contingency plan to help veterans in case the government shutdown.

        HE SAID THAT HE WAS SURPRISED that the government happened.

        What General would ever send his troops into battle without having a Plan B?

        Shinseki is just one of many bought-and–paid military stars that puts politics before the troops.

        Whatever.

  2. Our veteran vote only matters if we all vote for democrats and vote all republicans out of office so we don’t have government shutdowns and votes against veterans and veterans disability payments for the severely wounded are not cut off by them.

  3. Make your veterans voice be heard!

    Sign up at Fund Our Vets so that we can protest those politicians who refuse to pay us our veterans’ disability compensation.

    Haven’t we, as veterans, sacrificed enough?

    https://fundourvets.com/

  4. We have no possibility to bring about change is we sit and do nothing. Together we CAN make changes by speaking our voice in the voting booth.

  5. .outstanding article. voting matters especially with veterans. it’s time to rise and shine veterans.don’t play didn’t blame other people.
    .we are one of the most important people in this country.

  6. West is a menace- and got off his charges and then immediately got bankrolled and in every way helped to become an ultra extremist conservative and fill in for the GOP missing black face -for the GOP that typically and still does not rep minority communities needs. PLEASE NOTE: pre 2008 and certain political aspirations considered, Ron Paul, too, did do many votes against vets and VA issues.

    1. What you just wrote is indicative of a non-military veteran trolling to defend Obama.

      Tell us how you feel about Obama keeping his golf course open at Andrews Airforce Base so that he work on his backswing while hundreds of thousands of broke military families are left to scrounge for food off-base because Obama closed down all the commissaries.

      Outrageous behavior of Obama’s thugs protecting the status quo of elitism while veterans and military service members are used as political hostages.

      Shameful, shameful, shameful.

  7. I respect and support veterans from all walks of life, and political persuasion, who have become our band of brothers and sisters, but, it is the choices that we have made when we elected our fellow citizens to represent us that needs to be critically challenged.

    Obama, as CINC-wannabe, the progressives, and RINOS have a long history of only paying lip service to veterans in America.

    For once and for all, we, as veterans, need to stop electing politicians that use our votes against us.

    This means that we elect politicians in 2014 that are former military service members and who still support the U.S. Constitution.

    Veterans fight for liberty is echoed in Allen West’s ‘The Revolution’.

    https://youtu.be/VP2p91dvm6M

    1. Whether one likes a particular President in office, the current Commander-In-Chief, one should at least show due respect and NOT resort to the name-calling and divisive methodology that those use to attempt to keep our community of Band of Brothers divided.
      Racism and any form of “ISM” is by definition usually a divisive tool. Something to think about because am tired of the lambasting our current Commander-In-Chief I read in EVERY ONE of your comments here.
      That includes calling other poster’s “TROLLS”…do you really think this is beneficial to we Veterans as a whole?

      Peace, really!

      1. Namnibor,

        I stand by my comments.

        But since you seem to be looking for an apology for name-calling and divisive methodology, then feel free to apologize to all us veterans for Democratic Senator Harry Reid’s politicizing the deaths of U.S. Marines last spring.

        https://youtu.be/EtU6K0KgK1w

      2. @
        John Smith says:

        October 7, 2013 at 4:19 pm

        Namnibor,

        I stand by my comments.

        But since you seem to be looking for an apology for name-calling and divisive methodology, then feel free to apologize to all us veterans for Democratic Senator Harry Reid’s politicizing the deaths of U.S. Marines last spring.

        @John Smith–Your comment there effectively alienated and attempted to categorize me into YOUR senseless US and THEM psychosis. I am indeed a Veteran and will call you out as simply trolling this site.
        Sorry, but I call it as I see and smell it and you seem to be on some mission of divisive mentality and already read someone else calling you out on it so I am NOT ALONE.

      3. Big picture, Namnibor.

        The Big Picture is all about scarce economic resources in America and the groups that attempt to control them.

        That is basically what pits Republicans versus Democrats.

        It is no mystery that the Democratic Party strategy is to create class warfare among the many groups in America to keep them destabilized and powerless from receiving too much from their government masters elected to disburse the spoils of taxation.

        The real winners that benefit from all these collected taxes are the Big Business cronies of Obama, Reid, and RINOS. These Wall Street masters reap the spoils of yours and my paycheck.

        With the entitlement pie only so big, it is inevitable that every group in America is fighting for their cut with what is left over after the greedy friends of Obama, Reid, and RINOS take what they want.

        However, out of all the groups, it is only the veterans that are ALWAYS TARGETED by Democrats and RINOS when there is a funding or debt limit fight.

        WE THE VETERANS are an easy target. We are wounded. We are the patriotic spirit of America that created Main Street with the blood sacrifice of thousands of our fellow brothers and sisters who have gone before us.

        It is US, WE THE VETERANS, that are paying the price as political hostages to Obama, Reid, and the RINOS.

        Anybody or any political group that does not immediately fund the VA is a traitor to the American ideal of always honoring our military service members and veterans.

        So you see, Namnibor, the divisive mentality that you see before you is from Obama, Reid, and the RINOS.

        I’m just showing you the facts, the facts that show that US is really the veterans, and that THEM is really Obama, Reid, and RINOS.

        Just the facts.

      4. THIS WEEK – While the shutdown is effecting even military funerals, the WH got Fischer House to assist /pay – Word is and a vote to pay families on death benefits and funeral costs was also done.
        John Smith, if that is his real name- is clearly an extremist conservative and is of those who would allow for no moderation and compromise but supports Corporate tea whose polices are an attempt to move USA to a more profitable for the few 2 class USA. That is why they are anti welfare but also truying to cut acces to brith control and anti health care and even cut food stamps to some active and veteran military families. They need desperate masses to enjoy what they do in other 2nd and third world lands. Prevention and Safety nets to not allow for enough desperation to make the Tea’s hope for change become a reality.

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