Former Buckeye here, I agree with you. So many were positive their vote wouldn’t change anything. No amount of encouragement could make them see the power of the large numbers they held.
I hope some type of voting reform can catch on. I think Star, Ranked or anything better, could cause enough curiosity in how it works to encourage more people to register.
I feel for you! The amount of times I’ve torn my living space apart to find something in an unusual but simple place (Or just never see it again). “It’ll be safe here”, “I’ll never miss it if i put it right here”… Some say our brains have all the information that they haver ever processed. Why does it fight us so hard when we try to retrieve something we know damn well it has the answers to?