Is this really a big problem in the States? It just seems a little strange that you appear to take your elections very seriously, and have these huge campaigns etc, but then voter turnout is still considered low?

One solution that occurs to me, simply because this is what used to happen in New Zealand and seemed to work okay, is to hold the election on a Saturday.

We have vote-by-mail all over the place now, so there's not much excuse beyond laziness.

In my opinion, if you can't be bothered to put in the minimal effort required now, I'd prefer you didn't vote anyway. I find it difficult to believe you'd be making anything resembling an informed decision.

The irony always being that voting for president has arguably less DIRECT impact on our lives than voting for local government, but people get far more worked up over the big stuff

Why not just hold elections on a Saturday like Australia and many other countries do?