A quote:
\”If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don\’t bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who are not dumb and are keenly aware that it\’s in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home . . . on Primary Day. By all means stay home if you want, but don\’t bullshit yourself that you\’re not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard\’s vote.\”
Don\’t worry, I\’ll attribute the quote next week, when I link to the article from which it was excerpted. For now, we\’re going to talk about voting. As of today it\’s 74 days until the election. You may be cynical about the two presidential candidates, and honestly I wouldn\’t blame you. You\’re going to hear about how you need to vote for one or the other, or your vote \”will be wasted\”. This is a lie! There is no such thing as a wasted vote. Like the quote says – either you vote for yourself, or in effect you\’re doubling the value of the voter who really wants to overturn Roe v Wade, or who really wants to overturn the 2nd Amendment, or… well, you get the idea. Even if you feel that your voice is not represented, make it heard!
Step One: Register to vote. Find out what the rules are for registration in your state. If you don\’t become a registered voter, then you can\’t vote, with results the same as not voting.
Step Two: Decide who to vote for. You\’ve got the two major parties. Chances are many 3rd Party Candidates will appear on your state\’s ballot. You might like some of their policies better than the Big Two. Or, in many states (but not all*), you can write-in a candidate. I couldn\’t find explicit rules for write-in candidates (because each State has their own rules), but it seems like your vote will be thrown out and NOT COUNTED if you make a frivolous vote. So as tempting as it may be to write-in Mickey Mouse, None of the Above, or even Monty Brewster, don\’t do it. I\’m guessing \”Al Gore\” would be one example of a cromulent write-in vote. (Or \”Fred Thompson\”, or \”H Ross Perot\”, or you get the idea.)
Finally, I just want to reiterate: YOUR VOTE COUNTS! Voter turnout hasn\’t gone much over 55% in my lifetime. That means almost half of the country doesn\’t vote! And you can bet your ass that if it were in the Establishment Parties\’ best interests to increase voter turnout, that they\’d be doing it. So connect the dots – what does that tell you? If you\’re cynical, and unsatisfied with Politics in this country, the answer is NOT to ignore election day. A vote for Someone Else is NOT a wasted vote!** Get out there! Get heard!
*Yes, I know this is a Hillary Clinton-based site. I just wanted to illustrate how the state-by-state rules for write-in candidates are not standardized, and vary by state as to their allowances.
**Unless of course you literally vote for \”Someone Else\”, in which case your vote will likely be thrown out (see above).
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