A Few Words Archives - Half Formed Thoughts 10/23/02

None of the Above

Election season is rapidly approaching once again, and I, being the well-informed and opinionated-to-a-fault person I am, have once again made the rational decision not to waste my time voting.

Before you send the rah-rah voting lynch squad after me, let me explain. I do not believe that my lack of voting makes me less of a citizen than those who do vote. And I am similarly not persuaded by those who implore me to vote “in honor of those who have died to give me that right.” In the first place, I don’t believe that anyone ever died to give me the right to vote. When’s the last time any totalitarian dictator tried to violently overthrow the U.S. government? Being a white male, my right to vote has been quite secure for several centuries, thank you.

And even if anyone did die to give me the right to vote, it’s certainly not because I asked them to. I happen to believe that the value of a human life is much greater than the value of the right to vote. Therefore, if anyone was stupid enough to die for that reason, his stupidity shouldn’t be binding on me. Lots of people have willingly died for lots of things. Believers of every religion have allowed themselves to be killed for their respective gods. I’d hate to feel obligated to respect their wishes. I’d have to convert to every religion ever invented.

So that’s why I don’t feel obligated to vote, but that doesn’t answer the question of why I don’t vote. I do lots of things I’m not obligated to. Like oral sex. Just kidding. I am obligated to do that.

The results of the most recent Presidential election have spurred many to claim that they are more likely to vote than ever before. The fact that the count in Florida, upon which hinged the entire election, was so close proved the notion that a single vote can make a difference.

On the contrary, it proved the exact opposite.

I have always known that it is astronomically unlikely that my single vote can be the deciding one in any electoral contest. Therefore, the outcome of the contest will be the same whether I personally vote or not. And from the Y2K election chaos, we learned that even if that astronomically unlikely event should ever come to pass, my single vote would become lost in the noise of contested ballots, uncounted absentee ballots, hanging chads, voters who are too stupid to understand how to vote, minorities denied their civil rights to vote at all, and ten thousand ballots which miraculously appear two weeks after the election, all of which are cast for Jimmy Hoffa.

In the face of this farce, why should I believe that my vote had the slightest impact on the outcome? Answer: I shouldn’t, because it didn’t.

Realistically speaking, a single person’s vote will never make an impact on anything outside of the nine justices of the Supreme Court. If a person wanted to help get a candidate elected, the only process which has any hope of efficacy is to work for his or her campaign, hoping to persuade large numbers of voters. One single person’s vote may make no difference, but if that single person can convince a hundred others to vote for his candidate, it might begin to approach a level where there is some statistical hope of affecting the outcome of a campaign. This is especially true at the level of state and local elections, where the total number of ballots cast is relatively small. In addition, the outcomes of your state and local elections are likely to have far more impact on your day-to-day existence than which stuffed shirt presently occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

So, in that vein, I take back everything I said about a single vote being completely valueless. If I somehow convinced you not to vote, it was all a joke. Ha ha. Pretend I never said anything. Your vote is extremely important. Your vote can make a difference. It is your civic duty to vote. And when you do, make sure to vote for your Libertarian Party candidate.

Email Steve with any comments at aenor@aurora.mv.com