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Not OP, but my most blackpill moment was discovering that the median voter was obviously casting ignorant votes. I'd heard complaints about "I had to stand in line an hour to vote!", and they seemed kind of weird because that's still just a small fraction of the several hours minimum it takes to do a half-decent investigation of candidates, but of course the answer was that nobody does that minimum, they just press the button and get the sticker.
I can't argue with rational-ignorance theory, I totally get it if someone just wants to vote for President because they're deluged with information in that one case alone, but then maybe don't cast votes for the other offices too?
I still don't think "try to decrease voter turnout" is the solution, though. I'm not sure what the solution is. Something more like a deliberate liquid democracy might help, perhaps? Even people who would push the "just vote for everyone with the correct letter after their name" button on their own behalf might feel more weight of responsibility if ten friends have placed trust in their decision-making. That might greatly increase voter turnout in midterm elections, too; you might think to yourself "I don't have time to figure out who the next city councilor should be", but if you know someone more politically interested who you trust then your vote can go through them rather than being abdicated entirely. I might not be sure who I can trust as the next Railroad Commissioner, because that takes research time, but I could name several people I would trust to do that research for me, because personal experience is "free".
And, if someone complained that they had to wait for an hour at the DMV to take their driver's test, would you say that that seems weird because it is a small fraction of the hours it takes to study for the test? Or if someone complained about waiting an hour at a real estate office to get in to see his agent to finalize a purchase, because that is a small fraction of the hours it takes search for a home to buy? The complaint in all cases is about poor customer service, and if I have to wait for an hour to do any of those things, someone has screwed up, regardless of how much time I put in to prepare.
You know what is really dumb? Doing an "investigation of candidates" in a general election. As if you can actually figure out anything accurate about the personal characteristics of the candidates, and, more importantly, as if their personal characteristics are particularly important, compared with the policies that they are likely to support. And in a general election, the party of the candidate tells the voters far, far, far more about the policies that they are likely to support than hours of research is likely to uncover.
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