By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker, 10 November 14

he United States of America is on the wrong track and no one is taking action to fix it, says a broad majority of registered voters who did not vote last Tuesday.

According to a new survey, anger, frustration, and a pervasive view that the nation is moving in a fatal direction dominated the mood of those who were doing something other than voting on Election Day.

Exit polls involving election non-participants took place as they left malls, nail salons, gyms, and other locations where no voting occurred on Tuesday.

“The system is broken,” said Carol Foyler, thirty-one, a democracy abstainer from Akron, Ohio. “We need to come up with some way that ordinary citizens can make their voices heard and have some impact on who is running things in Washington.”

The economy, jobs, and terrorism topped the list of worries that are preying on the minds of the non-voting electorate.

“I find it difficult to sleep at night worrying about the kind of country we are leaving to our children and our children’s children,” said Mark Gardziak, forty-seven, who spent Election Day shopping for a phone.

While pessimism about the future dominated the comments of the sixty-three per cent of American voters who elected not to exercise their democratic rights on Tuesday, some expressed a glimmer of hope.

“The one way things could get better is if we all get together and throw out the crooked politicians,” offered Tess Shardin, thirty-eight, who said she was unlikely to vote in 2016.