In the 34 years I’ve been eligible to vote, I’ve never not voted, even casting my ballot during university elections.

But even for someone who says ‘but I don’t want to vote for either of them, why go?’ – ballots are for more than just picking who sits in the spiffy elected chair. Vote to give your voice to school and emergency service funding. Vote your opinion on proposed changes in smoking or alcohol policy – do you want your city or state to become a no-smoking zone? Do you want someone else to make that choice for you? Do you want to permit legalized gambling in your state, or to change the laws governing gambling if it’s already legal? Is there a possible change in laws about when kids can drive, or a local curfew? All that stuff goes on the ballot as well, not just who goes to city council, or the senate.

And yes, add me in for ‘if you didn’t care enough to vote on who should sit in the office, don’t complain about how they’re handling things.’

So please, don’t encourage people to vote. That means mine will “weigh” more.

BRAVA. I have so much respect and admiration for you. As someone who studies politics in her day job, you have articulated beautifully what we too often overlook in politics.

I am in the minority on this and many other blogs I frequent, as well as in my RL context, because I’m totally fed up and disgusted with BOTH the candidates. I’ve voted in every presidential and almost every off-year election since I turned 18, but I genuinely don’t know what I’ll do this year for the Presidential vote.

That said, I will DEFINITELY go to the polls. Most people here have concentrated on the top of the ticket. Michele Lee and Suisan remind us about the rest of the reasons we vote. Even if you don’t want to cast a vote for one of the presidential candidates, don’t stay home unless you feel the same way about *every single issue and candidate.*

In other words, go and vote at the state and local levels. Don’t forget the judges if your state elects them! And all those bonds and referenda. Those affect people’s lives so much.

Wow, great idea. Any soldier in a firefight? has INSTANT SHRAPNEL waiting in his pants.

Sorry, but I don’t believe this.

And ditto not voting for the lesser of two evils. Moreover, I no longer believe in “actively participating by choosing leaders who can best fix our problems” — because most politicians take your vote as a mandate for whatever agenda they hold and haven’t bothered to tell you about during the election.

The politicians who come back and ask their voters what they want — or who listen to your e-mails and phone calls — because they know they are REPRESENTING THE PEOPLE are the ones I want to vote for. You can’t vote and go back to dreamland any more, people. Constant vigilance is required to keep a democracy healthy.

Voter training should include elements of conducting job interviews, because that’s really what this is all about. Too much can be hidden in the usual media memes that get thrown around or “she’s just like my Aunt Tilda!”

Now that I’ve experienced both running for office and sitting as an elected official, I will say that some of the most thoughtful people I know, the ones who are the most well-versed on an issue and who go out of their way to research topics or candidates have a surprisingly LOW voting average.

When I get a voter list from the elections office, I can request various variables: voted in three out of the last four elections, voted in two municipal and one national election, declared party members only, under 65, etc. I often got two lists. One for me and a more restrictive one for my volunteers. This way the volunteers would be less likely to bump into an undecided, unmotivated or aggressively partisan voter.

But when I compare the two, I end up finding MANY of my friends and supporters do not vote, even when they tell me they do. (Voter lists do not say HOW a person votes, just whether that person has a recorded vote in a particular election.) It’s very hard to look at a person who INSISTS that they voted for or against this bond proposal or mayoral candidate when you know that the elections office recorded no such vote for them. Sort of makes you wonder how strongly held any other view they have is.

This leaves the decision-making up to the hulking masses who don’t read newspapers or attend public meetings, and who may be voting along party lines because it’s just easier to vote that way.

Believe me, in a local election it is very hard to get the media to portray the candidate’s views correctly. They write only a tiny part of you platform, and they often don’t attend candidate forums or debates. Thus, what you read about in the papers may not be the full story of that candidate. (My local paper changed the number of children I had in every article they wrote about me. My age also kept changing. Sometimes I was married and other times I wasn’t. Weird.)

We’ve had two funding mechanisms for public schools die at the polls because California has a %66.67 threshold for passage of a parcel tax. One had %65 yay votes, and the next had %58 — these are OVERWHELMING rates of passage in any other election. Windfall. But both lost because the minority has control in that situation. The fewer votes you have recorded, the more likely it is that any measure will not pass. Because the ones who are dedicated to voting it down will be sure to record their votes. The ones who assume it will pass without their support are the ones who often forget to vote for it because someone else will.

In terms of voting for the lesser of two evils: contact the candidates. Tell them you hate XYZ on their platform. If they are local, ask to speak directly to them. Offer to host a tea or a fundraiser or work in a phone bank *if* they will shift in this one area.

But if you don’t vote, you WILL get the guys you do not want in office.

I ended up running because I contacted a school board member to say, “I’m sick of running auctions and fundraisers for the schools. Really. Seriously, how can I help you get the word out about what needs to be fixed in this system?” He was silent for a good bit and then leaned across the table and said, “The best thing you could do for our schools is to run for office.” I was shocked. Floored. Had absolutely no aspirations there at all.

But it was the best thing I could have done. I learned SO MUCH about public education and politics.

If you don’t like what’s out there, find the guy who’s the MOST like you in elected office, ask for some advice, give him/her some of your opinions, and then go run for office.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFOTC30RhHY

This is a teaser of the 11/2 Simpsons Episode (D’Oh).

Vote if you can, vote if you want to. It is a right you don’t have to exercise. BTW, Wensi, I didn’t vote at your age either. I had my epiphany when I was living abroad and my state (Texas) didn’t send me my ballot. I felt so disenfranchised that I’ve voted ever since. :P

I vote every time I get the chance and have since the late 1970's. I consider it my license to bitch. It also makes me feel like part of the process, instead of a helpless observer, if that makes any sense.

I spent my vote several times on no-hope parties, like the Natural Law party, because I couldn’t bring myself to vote for any of the main parties. My vote may have registered in somebody’s head as a protest vote, but more likely I was lumped into the drunken fools who used to vote for the Rhinocerous party.

This year, I know that my vote will simply cancel out my roommate’s. I can live with that. I know my guy is not going to get elected in my constituency, because the incumbent is going to be. That’s just how it’s going to work out.

However, by cancelling out my roomie’s vote, I’ve at least made room for another vote to count. Or maybe somebody else’s vote is cancelling out my roomie’s, and my vote will count.

The point is, by choosing not to vote, even as a protest, you are allowing those who do vote to have a say, and voluntarily silencing yourself.

I get your point, Michelle, and I do empathise. I wish you would find a different way to register your protest.

On a side note, I registered to vote, and considered putting in an absentee ballot since I’m overseas when the election rolls around, but there’s no point in going through all the effort. Call me lazy or whatever, but I see no point in voting because I come from IL, which is firmly firmly in the Obama camp. Not that I want to vote for McCain, but since my vote really doesn’t matter, I don’t feel like bothering. Maybe if I was in Ohio or something. Looking at the CNN map, we’re one of the few MidWest states that are firmly democratic. Everyone here does make me ashamed though, because I haven’t voted and I turned 18 three years ago. Maybe I’ll vote when the next election rolls around.

Or, based on other comments, there other stuff I can vote in? I’m assuming that maybe Chicago just isn’t good at it or whatever, but I don’t even know how the local/state people are elected, I never see anything besides the odd sign here or there to vote for the council…

We all know one vote won’t change the election, (and the Paradox of Voting suggests that the outcome of individual voting preferences is not individually rational), but this is why we have to think of it not in terms of self-interest (getting my person elected, getting my preferences met), but rather, in terms of our membership in the political community, and the rights and privileges that entails.

I’m not convinced by the argument that if you don’t like any of the candidates, you don’t need to vote. For one thing, that position doesn’t have any political effect, since nobody can tell the difference between the lazy and the principled nonvoter. For another, you can write in candidates. And finally, you can’t generalize this position: in what other case would you refuse to choose between two outcomes you don’t like? If there’s a worry that voting for candidate you don’t like is an endorsement that violates your integrity (and I can see this), you can do other things outside the voting process to help bring about the real choice we currently lack (and I agree with you completely about that).

For me, the most entertaining part of this election season is Craig Ferguson’s monologues when he has one of his rants (in a good way) on voting; I had just watched tonight’s rant when I read this blog, so it was perfect timing. For those who don’t know, this will be his first election as an American citizen and he is definitely opinionated on the subject :) You may be able to catch some of them on YouTube.

When the campaigns themselves sling mud, I get more upset. When one slings a lot more than the other, it usually affects my vote. Indeed, sometimes the level of nastiness in the campaign helps me decide which is the lesser of the two weevils!

If you look at politicalcompass.org, you see that almost all the candidates for president and vice president this year, even going back to the primaries, have political views clustered in the upper right quadrant of the political spectrum. For a lower-left gal like me, that’s pretty discouraging. But in any election I usually find that if I look at enough issues and positions, there are at least a few where I find a clear and compelling difference between the candidates. I think that’s worth the effort; I can accept that some people don’t. My personal preference would be that those who don’t make the effort to make an informed choice would just not vote at all.

Having people tell me how I should vote turns me off so much. and they you get into what LauraB brought up where can you go for real information and not info that’s either sensationalized by the media or slanted toward one side or the other.

I swear if I hear someone, in all seriousness tell me Obama is a terrorist Muslim trying to take over the US as part of the Muslim quest to destroy America I’m going to scream. Ditto for the next person who tells me McCain is a racist, sexist warmonger who will declare martial law as soon as he is sworn in and turn us into a military state.

How is this high pressure, nasty mud slinging encouraging people to get involved?

Some have said on this thread that they don’t like having to vote for the lesser of two evils (I know I felt this way back in 1988) or that the electoral college–winner takes all system cancels out their vote (I TOTALLY get this one). Well, how much of this attitude is influenced by how the media casts the election? For example: I don’t care about Sarah Palin’s daughter; I care about her ability to come up with a nuanced policy stance. I don’t care about Obama’s pastor; I care about his plans to improve health care access for all.

All we hear are the chattering punditry, negative adds and sound bites from partisan radio/ news networks. This being the case, I can fully understand the apathy so many express. Voters have to stand up, vote in their primaries, and refuse to buy into general silliness. I don’t want to vote for someone like me; rather, I want to vote for someone who has a plan I believe in.

Some days, I ask myself who benefits most if I don’t vote. Certainly not me.