Ever heard someone say that stupid people shouldn’t be allowed to vote? Or say that people who don’t know the politicians shouldn’t vote? Or even something as simple as saying that someone or some people are voting for the wrong reasons? It’s actually been shown that people, if undecided, unaffiliated, and uninformed on the candidates, will simply vote for whoever looks better, or whomever’s name they recognize first if it’s a list?
On the other side, we’ve all heard it, if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain when things go wrong. It’s your civic duty to vote, and so forth. So where do people go who simply don’t know or don’t care or simply wish to straight ticket vote without regard to what their votes mean?
There are a number of people out there, I’ll call them “elitists,” not because they are, well, actually, yes, because tehy are. There are these “elitists” out there who think you shouldn’t vote, or even shouldn’t be allowed to vote if you are uninformed, indifferent, or a straight ticket voter. We all know the types: your neighbor who straight ticket votes every time and doesn’t follow politics, the people in some other town who vote because fear propaganda worked, your friend who got sucked into one candidate’s slogan and refuses to consider anything else, and all the rest. Should they really not be allowed to vote? The implication is that voting would exclusively be performed by those who are informed and deeply consider the issues, candidates, and policies. I suppose that would make campaigning easy: it would be a, I’m sad to say, small group to target. It would, however, for better or for worse, make the dream of hegemony come true.
Are elections not but the sum of all the influences on the electorate in the preceding months? So how can it be that some of those reasons are incorrect? There is a part of me, to be sure, that wishes some people wouldn’t vote. But that is entirely my selfish, biased partisanship, and nothing more. Everyone, everyone is entitled to vote for whatever reasons might move him or her. Every citizen is entitled to have his or her voice heard when crunch time rolls around no matter what motivates him or her to participate.
Think about it. A piece of every dollar you spend on gasoline goes to lobbyists who will serve their businesses interests in Washington, on Wall Street, and even in each American’s television set. A fraction of every medical bill you pay goes to groups that market drugs straight to the consumers on television. A bit of each purchase you make goes to at least one if not many interest groups that will attempt to influence your Congressperson. A sliver, or perhaps quite a bit more of your loan payments, whether it was a car, a credit card, or your tuition contributed to the push for deregulation that ended up crippling our economy. Not to belabor this but I have one more. Every time you watch television and see advertisements on FOX, or CNN, or MSNBC or whatever you watch, part of that goes to partisan and biased news reporting that will invoke fear and distrust and partisanship that will continually perpetuate itself.
So we are all responsible for why we vote the way we vote. Sure, some of us take the time to step outside our own visceral reactions and contemplate more. Some of us research the issues and maybe even change our minds. Some of us blog and attempt to reach out to others, often with our own partisan agenda. If you convinced someone to vote for your candidate of choice for the wrong reasons, would you still tell him/her not to vote? Maybe. But probably not. Why should it not be the same for the other side?
The right to vote is simply that. It’s everyone’s opportunity to push a button for whatever reasons they have. If inspired by brilliance or by fear, it’s nothing more than the net result of all the money we spend every blasted second on advertising, marketing, spinning, and campaigning. It’s the net product of all the minutes we spend talking politics around water coolers, canvassing door to door, and blogging politics.
Now, if you’re one of the “elitists,” I do apologize if this entry offended you. That was a bit of misplaced sarcasm, and really this would read just as well without it. Still, I feel like I should leave it in because this is one of those things that troubles me a great deal.
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