{"id":420,"date":"2012-10-14T13:06:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T11:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=420"},"modified":"2015-04-27T22:27:53","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T20:27:53","slug":"why-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/why-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Why vote?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every recent US president was elected by a minority<\/span> \u2014 one quarter, at most one third, of the population. That’s because nearly half of the Americans who could vote don’t vote.<\/p>\n

I’ve been meeting Americans who tell me they won’t be voting this November. The candidates don’t speak to their needs; the system is too corrupt; promises are made to be broken. I understand these reasons.<\/p>\n

When I was 19, I didn’t vote. I kind of wanted to, and felt I should, but I didn’t think I knew enough about the candidates to make an informed decision. I didn’t see enough of a difference between them. It was like choosing between Coke<\/span> and Pepsi \u2014 Tweedledum and Tweedledee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By making an uninformed decision, I could have done more harm than good.<\/p>\n

“Not my job”<\/h2>\n

In hindsight<\/span>, I was just lazy. I did follow the news. I did have some idea of what the different political parties stood for. And even if the candidates’ statements were generally kind of vague, they did express certain promises and philosophies.<\/p>\n

I’d felt that it was the job of the politicians to follow the rules, to abide by<\/span> the law, and to do what was in the interest of everyone. After all, they take an oath<\/span> of office. If they sought personal advantage or became corrupt, the press would hold them to account<\/span>. Their colleagues would censure<\/span> them or force them to resign. For a while, that actually seemed to happen.<\/p>\n

Then there were the hurdles: the fact that, in America, you have to register to vote \u2014 you aren’t just sent a ballot<\/span> \u2014 and the fact that Election Day in the US is not a public holiday \u2014 it’s a regular Tuesday. Voting can mean missing a couple of hours of work or school.<\/p>\n

It’s easier now in some states, where “early voting” is possible and absentee<\/span> ballots can be sent in by non-absentees. Back then, as busy as I was, I could still have taken the time. But I also thought: My state always picked<\/span> the winners anyway, and without it being close. It was obvious to me that my vote wouldn’t make a difference.<\/p>\n

That was as precise an argument as I could make. But it was also a precise fallacy<\/span>.<\/p>\n

A protest against what?<\/h2>\n

You see, if you don’t vote, that’s the only message anyone will get from you: that you didn’t vote. No one will know why. They won’t know whether you were protesting the system, or didn’t agree with any of the candidates, or just couldn’t be bothered<\/span>, or whether you were prevented from voting. The press will speculate for a day or two about why voter turnout<\/span> was so low, and then they’ll forget all about it until the next election, years later.<\/p>\n

Years later, things may indeed look different. Voting, ultimately<\/span>, is not about individuals, nor about the moment. It’s about an aggregate<\/span> effect. It’s about finding a majority<\/span> and deciding what your country’s values and priorities should be.<\/p>\n

The people who are elected to office now will be laying down<\/span> the rules for those who come after them. The laws they write may not affect you now, but they could in a few years’ time, when you’re at a different point in your life. And when a crisis occurs, you will want people in office who would handle it the way you’d want them to.<\/p>\n

My travels to assorted<\/span> monarchies and dictatorships have taught me that there are billions of people who dream of the rights and freedoms that we have. Look at the Arab Spring. Try explaining to those people why you wouldn’t vote if you had the chance.<\/p>\n

America and the West don’t always get it right, but like it or not, we’re the ones the developing world looks up to. Democracy is what unites us as a people. You may not think your vote will make a difference, but to others, it’s the most important right you have.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mike Pilewski<\/p>\n

\n

Between 4 and 7 million Americans live outside the US.<\/b> They can order voting materials quickly online via the Federal Voting Assistance Program: www.fvap.gov<\/a><\/p>\n

Both the Democrats Abroad and Republicans Abroad have resources that can help Americans to vote from outside the US \u2014 no matter how they intend to vote: votefromabroad.org<\/a> | www.republicansabroad-vl.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every recent US president was elected by a minority \u2014 one quarter, at most one third, of the population. That’s because nearly half of the Americans who could vote don’t vote. I’ve been meeting Americans who tell me they won’t be voting this November. The candidates don’t speak to their needs; the system is too corrupt; promises are made to … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[36,29],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1735,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions\/1735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}