as one of the most divisive and least predictable campaign seasons in memory came to an end on tuesday, millions of americans from all walks of life took part in a time-honored national tradition: they did not vote. some people were barred from voting by law , and others were effectively blocked by the obstacles put up by new restrictions or stalled by the memories of bad experiences the last time around . for others, child-care and work demands proved too difficult to juggle with going to a polling place. some decided not to cast a ballot on principle . but there were plenty who just could not be bothered with the whole business. <u+201c>part of it is laziness,<u+201d> said charlene petrillo, 47, standing behind a meat counter in lake geneva, wis., and acknowledging that she had been stirred by campaigns before, like president obama<u+2019>s, but had never actually gone through with the actual voting part. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t want to stand in line with a hundred thousand people.<u+201d> eliza holgate, 19, who watched her first election day as a potential voter come and go from the gallery of purple-glowing beds at golden tan, in a mini mall in draper, utah, explained the scheduling issue: <u+201c>i<u+2019>m at work all the time.<u+201d> ms. holgate is from a family of politically engaged republicans, and her mother had been after her to cast a ballot. she wondered herself whether she would regret not doing so. but still, she had made up her mind. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t want to be a part of it,<u+201d> she said. to some degree, this is fully predictable. in recent decades, 40 percent to 50 percent of eligible voters have failed to turn out in presidential election years. given this campaign season, where new depths were always found to plumb and old standards to undercut, this relatively low turnout seemed likely to hold. echoing a common analysis, catherine bonneville, 63, a retiree in phoenix, described the choice as between <u+201c>despicable<u+201d> ( donald j. trump ) and <u+201c>untrustworthy<u+201d> ( hillary clinton ). <u+201c>i voted for sheriff. i voted for senator. i voted for county recorder and for judges,<u+201d> ms. bonneville said. <u+201c>i couldn<u+2019>t in good conscience vote for president.<u+201d> but this was also an election season of ever higher and more terrifying stakes, a street-corner duel of end-times prophets. mrs. clinton and her supporters saw a nightmare in mr. trump<u+2019>s apparent lack of interest in longstanding international arrangements, his glibness about the use of nuclear weapons and the unrepentant white nationalism of some of his fans. mr. trump, for his part, spoke of apocalypse now, painting contemporary america as crime-plagued ( a claim not especially true ) and economically stagnant (a better grounded one), and at the edge of an irreversible decline. among trump supporters, the extent of this doomsaying may have had the opposite of its intended effect. on monday night, adrian trusca, 28, was sweeping the floors of a bar in downtown raleigh, n.c., not far from the college campus where mrs. clinton would soon hold a midnight rally. he said he liked the idea of mr. trump, an outsider smashing up what seemed like a cozy insider<u+2019>s game. but mr. trusca saw that game as being so hopelessly fixed that he did not see his vote being counted <u+2014> even here in one of the most closely contested swing states in the country. the electronic voting machines, mr. trusca said, were controlled with software that allows a certain <u+201c>they<u+201d> to override the will of the voters. <u+201c>they, being the elite,<u+201d> he explained. <u+201c>the elite being the democrats. the people that literally party together, and they run society, because they run the government.<u+201d> the notion that some secretive group is deciding electoral outcomes was also echoed by trump supporters elsewhere, including some from more unexpected sources than mr. trusca. <u+201c>they already know who is going to be president,<u+201d> said chris starks, 27, as he sat outside an apartment complex in a gritty part of tallahassee, fla. <u+201c>they just want us to feel like we<u+2019>ve got a say-so.<u+201d> mr. starks, who is black, said that if he had voted, he would have reluctantly followed the lead of his parents, who supported mr. trump. his wife, charlene, 26, who sat atop an air-conditioning unit with her infant daughter at her side, said she would have voted for senator bernie sanders if he had won the democratic nomination. but she had no love for the two candidates that they <u+2014> apparently a different <u+201c>they<u+201d> from the ones lined up against mr. trump <u+2014> had ultimately put up. <u+201c>they put the race against two people who nobody wanted to vote for,<u+201d> she said. not to decide, of course, is to decide, and this was precisely the point for carolyn blanks mayes, whose front yard in mobile, ala., was scattered with signs that read: <u+201c>african-american<u+2019>s don<u+2019>t vote november 8, 2016 presidential election.<u+201d> this message was also on a t-shirt her sister was wearing, on the passenger door of her car and in the fliers that she and her sister had given out on city sidewalks every chance they had. this anticampaign, which ms. mayes said was a year old, was not based on the rejection of any particular candidate, or even the political process itself. she voted twice for mr. obama but has resisted calling him the first black president because his mother was white. she just wanted to send a message, and she saw this as the first step. <u+201c>it doesn<u+2019>t matter who<u+2019>s running, they<u+2019>re going to ignore us,<u+201d> ms. mayes said, as she stood in her yard and talked of extending the boycott to public schools and christmas shopping. nothing she had heard about mr. trump or mrs. clinton made her change her mind, nor did her calls to reject voting change her conviction that federal officials needed to be more involved in local matters. <u+201c>you disrespect us all these years,<u+201d> ms. mayes said, <u+201c>we<u+2019>re going to disappoint you.<u+201d> the number of those like ms. mayes, who could vote and chose not to, is quantifiable, and that number may say something about the depths of cynicism in the electorate. but there is another number, an incalculable one, made up of a much quieter constituency: those who desperately want to vote and cannot. outside a two-story spanish-style home in los angeles, just blocks away from a polling place that discharged a steady stream of people wearing <u+201c>i voted<u+201d> stickers, juan manuel campos worked arranging bricks while fellow workers laid cement. mr. campos, an immigrant from el salvador, had paid close attention to the election over the past months, watching mr. trump<u+2019>s invectives against illegal immigration each night on the spanish-language news. he had urged cousins and friends to vote, and he felt certain they would. perhaps, he said quietly, by the next presidential election, something would change and he could cast a ballot himself. but not this year, not as an undocumented immigrant. <u+201c>my life is in everyone else<u+2019>s hands right now,<u+201d> mr. campos said, wiping the sweat from his brow. <u+201c>i only can wait.<u+201d> reporting was contributed by alan blinder from tallahassee, fla.; richard fausset from raleigh, n.c.; julie bosman from lake geneva, wis.; jack healy from draper, utah; jennifer medina from los angeles; and fernanda santos from phoenix. find out what you need to know about the 2016 presidential race today, and get politics news updates via facebook , twitter and the morning briefing newsletter . a version of this article appears in print on november 9, 2016, on page p6 of the new york edition with the headline: because of law, life or apathy, election day for millions is just another tuesday. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
millions on election day make a different decision: not voting
campbell robertson