Once again, I am being asked that dreaded question, “Who are you voting for?” Then I get this odd look when I say “I am not.” Yeah yeah I know, I’ve heard all the speeches about all the men who died fighting for the right to vote, and how it’s my duty as a free American citizen. I firmly believe that with the right to vote for the person of one’s choosing, we also have the right NOT to vote when we feel that we’re being taken advantage of.
The past few elections, we’ve been presented with several candidates, many of whom maybe qualified and several also-rans who never stand a chance from the get-go. The media decides early on who they want to win, and then focus all their stories on those people, such that by the time the first round comes along, we’re seeing debates between “Media Darling” and “who?” It gets to the point where you don’t even know who all the players are because the news simply doesn’t want you to. This time around, it was Hillary and Obama, since no matter which one was elected a new precendent was set. Hillary supporters kept chanting on about that glass celing she so elegantly crashed into, and Obama fans were thrilled at the notion of a the first black president. Fast forward to now, and we have McCain vs Obama, and there may even be some others still on the ticket but we don’t know nor care who they are, again because they aren’t important enough to worry about (or so sayeth the Media.)
In the weeks leading up to Election Day, all we see in the headlines are how people are trying to sabotage the voting system. Touch screen voting machines that change your vote. People handing out flyers telling people the wrong day to vote. Negative ad campaigns that, to me anyway, say nothing more than “I can’t come up with any reasons why you should vote for me, so here are a bunch of lies about my opponent.” Rumors about ties to terrorists. People going back through the history of someone’s career and changing events to suit their own cause. College students being told they aren’t allowed to vote because of some question about their citizenship. And the list goes on – once again, the election results will be in question because of some technological screwup, or someone will be accused of tampering with the results, someone will get in front of a news camera and start shouting big impressive words like “disenfranchise” and it will get dragged through the courts. A judge someplace will decide who wins, and the way things are going so far, it wouldn’t shock me to learn that someone bought the judge to rule in their favor.
There is something different I have been hearing this year. People are not necessarily voting for the one they feel is the best, they are voting for the one they are being told to vote for. People are feeling pressures to vote a certain way because they might look bad to their little social circle if they don’t. Blacks are being pressured into voting for Obama, for obvious reasons. Veterans are all chanting “Veterans for McCain” because he was a POW. Now you take the one guy on a block full of veterans who doesn’t believe in McCain, but all his friends and neighbors do – this guy’s going to vote for McCain because he was pressured into it. (Guy I worked with told me about the one Obama supporter on his block who had his signs knocked down and his car vandalized – so much for the freedom to vote the way you see fit.) Or some housewife who doesn’t really follow the election, but all her friends say Obama is just the best thing to come along, so off she goes to cast her vote for someone she knows nothing at all about. A lot of other people (I have spoken to, I am not making this up) have said they “have to vote with their party.” Why? If you registered Republican, and don’t think McCain is the guy for the job, then don’t vote for him. You don’t just walk into a voting booth and hit the “Democrat” button just because you feel you’re required to – that’s how we keep getting the same morons in office every few years. People don’t think before they vote. (On the other side, we have the people who put way too MUCH thought into it, chastizing anyone who doesn’t think they way they do.)
Knowing all that, why bother to participate? It hasn’t been a fair election process for as long as I can remember. One side always has it rigged, the media slanders the guy they don’t want to win, and we all, like sheep, follow along, believing that our vote actually matters. Granted, we now have the Internet, and it’s easier to get real facts out there, but there aren’t enough people using it. Several web sites popped up claiming to check the “facts” tossed around by the candidates, and laid out which ones were really true and which ones were made up to make someone look better. The candidates (at least some of them) still assume that the people voting for them are idiots who will believe anything you tell them, and will say anything to get elected. They will tell whatever lies they need to tell to get into office, and then three years later when asked why they didn’t do everything they promised, they will make up more lies like “Congress didn’t vote for it” or “the people didn’t want it.”
Maybe next time. Then again, I said that in 2004.