BUFFALO, N.Y. — A key demographic for races up and down the ballots in New York are undecided voters, but what about those who have already decided not to participate?

From vying for the White House to some city or town council members, every vote matters; even the ones that aren't cast. Reaching out to as many people as we could, there's a lot of different takes about those empty ballots, but not much in the way of it being positive.

“You can't complain when something happens in our government if you haven't voted to make a change," said Judy Johnson, who has spent the days leading up to the election with her friend Becca Leone wondering why anyone would choose not to vote.

“I just think that, you know, voting...it’s our right and it's our duty to do it,” said Leone.

After all, thousands of activists and concerned citizens have poured hours into explaining their view of what the next couple of years could look like.

“I have done the postcards for people who are undecided. We have sent them to Pennsylvania, to Wisconsin, to a great many places. And we basically say, ‘your voice, your vote,’” said Johnson.

Some people are hardwired to vote like Kevin Hardwick, who cast his first ballot back in the 1970s.

"It was for myself. I ran for school board back when I was a senior in high school [and] just turned 18," said the Erie County comptroller and Canisius University political science professor. “I was fortunate enough to get elected." 

Hardwick realizes even the people who didn't vote for him along the way deserve to have input. 

“There are people who are turned off by the major candidates at the presidential level," he added. "But there are also a lot of state and local candidates, those offices are also important. You know, to me, they're already there. They're at the polls. It takes another few seconds to fill in another few bubbles. They should vote for those jobs because they're important also.”

It's more of a struggle for voters like Jasmin Attalla. An early voter from the Hudson Valley who voted Democrat for most of her life but went third party on the big ticket because of the current administration's handling of issues in the Middle East and the former president's track record of policy and behavior.

"The more I get involved politically, the more I learn and the more I think about the future,” she said. “I have a 6-year-old, and I really think about like, what is this country going to look like in 10, 20, 30 years.”

Attalla says she left some spots blank down the ticket for the same reasons with no clear alternative.

“The more I realize that we really need to break this to be binary, the majority of Americans do not agree with either party, fully do not support either party,” she said. “But the way that the system is set up electorally, we don't have any choice but to choose from them.”

Voters are being strategic with their votes but many are making it clear that speaking up is a priority. 

"Good or bad, at least you are making a difference in our democracy. If you truly believe that this is a democracy,” said Johnson. 

The facts are we won't know how people not casting a ballot will affect these races until the winners are in, and we take a look at the data after the fact to see how many people abstained who could have swayed outcomes one way or the other.

More people have already voted early than ever before, crushing records in the 2024 election cycle. There's an expectation to have a record number of votes in this election. Roughly 81 million people didn't vote in 2020, but we still saw record turnout.