“I’m too lazy,” says one college-age voter. “I hate politicians,” declares another. “I don’t live in a swing state, so my vote really doesn’t count,” explains one New Yorker. Anyone can construct a justification for staying out of the political process and there’s little that can be said to convince otherwise.
I offer you two very simple reasons to vote. It’s your duty and no matter what you may have heard, your vote really does make a difference.
In America, we are privileged to be free. In fact, we are so free that we can choose to vote or not to vote. Today, American troops are fighting overseas. The Bush administration argues that those troops are trying to secure the right to vote for millions of oppressed Iraqis. People were willing to die for this right more than two hundred years ago and they’re willing to die for it today.
Here’s what happens when a society loses grasp of this right. In Iraq in 2003, prior to the American invasion, the Baathist party reported to media outlets that Saddam Hussein had been re-elected by 100 percent of the Iraqi population.
What’s more interesting is that Saddam’s regime even gave credence to the wisdom of the people. Saddam Hussein, bedfellow of Satan, genocidal sociopath, believed that there was at least some credibility in a consensus of the people.
In Iraq, a vote didn’t make any difference in the way the people are governed. That’s not the case in America. Besides the simple fact that our election process is more or less incorruptible, there are policymakers who analyze voting statistics like it’s their job. Well, actually, it is their job.
Politicians pay attention to the voting statistics because they are paranoid about losing their positions. The only way that they are able to stay one step ahead of their opponents is to analyze all the minutiae of voter statistics. When you vote for a candidate this November, political strategists do not just look at you as one tally mark. They look at you as a member of your demographic, as a resident of your community, as a democrat, as a republican, as a democrat living in a republican state and so on. All this information is in the back of politicians’ minds when they vote on bills in Congress.
If you live in any of the swing states, such as Maine, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ohio, or Illinois, your vote may be the one that decides the election.
If you think your vote doesn’t count in a state like New York – where the electoral votes will probably go to Kerry by a 20 percent margin and a Republican hasn’t won the state since the Coolidge campaign – it does. If you were to vote for Bush in this state, people are going to wonder why.
I could go on for pages with various scenarios. I hope the preceding ones offer some food for thought. Between now and Election Day, I’ll leave all you undecided voters with a strikingly relevant quote from Plato. “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you could end up being governed by your inferiors.”
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