The Eye of the Voter

“Choose your cup, cast your vote. 7 Election.” – 7-Eleven ad campaign

“Open your window. If you hear gunshots and the wails of starving babies, the other guy won.” – The Onion

Election years must be hard on rational people. In addition to the constant barrage of advertisements and information from candidates, parties, Super PAC's, issue-oriented groups and various news outlets, there’s also a non-stop feed of opinions and links from politically-charged people who aim to convince you that their guy is good and the other guy is an evil harbinger of an impending apocalypse which will soon follow the election of the wrong candidate. I’m guilty of participating in this rhetoric of urgency and I’m sure a lot of you are too. I do it because the other guy makes me mad and because I believe I’m right, but when I take the time to check in with my rational self I am reminded that we all need to chill the fuck out and do the one thing that actually does matter in all of this, which is, of course, to vote.

The flip side of all this hysteria is complete and total  apathy—which is largely responsible for the fact that on average only 47% people in the U.S. exercise their right to vote.  That number, if you’re wondering, is the average of eligible citizens who bothered to vote in the 2008 and 2010 elections. In reality it fluctuates from around 58% in presidential election years and 37% in mid-term election years, and is typically much, much lower in local races. It remains in all years, however, pathetically low compared with other wealthy first world nations. What gives people?

The impulse to believe that elections don’t matter is not any more rational than the belief that the sky will open up and a plague of locusts will descend to ruin our country forever if we elect the other guy. Of course it matters, you lazy asshole. I will concede, though, that it probably doesn't matter in the way that the above-mentioned political fanatics would have you believe. If you ask me, the Republican Party is living proof that elections matter. The reason the GOP was successfully hijacked by assault-riffle-owning wing-nuts and radical Christian weirdos is that these people vote, and step by baby step they moved a major party so far to the right that now Ronald Reagan seems like a moderate.

As a Gen-X’er no one needs to explain disenfranchisement to me; I've been sucking on that teat since the smell of Teen Spirit was an actual deodorant. In a world where Americans see 5000 selling messages a day and our elections are won and lost to the tune of 6 fucking Billion dollars it’s hard to feel like any choice you make is legitimate or any candidate you vote for has come up honestly. I think this is why so many people are secretly excited about the oil shock—and as fucked up as we know that future is going to be, people are secretly, shamefully, a little excited.  Ask your friends and way more of them than you probably think will sheepishly admit to kinda sorta looking forward to a Mad Max reality where maybe, just maybe, something they do will actually matter. What we all need to understand though, is that while it’s so much less dramatic than the Thunderdome, what we do matters now too, and if we ever want anything to be different we need to wake the fuck up and do the only thing that actually does count in all of this, which is, of course, to vote.

Don’t like the candidates? Great, write one in—and don’t believe either party when they tell you that your write-in vote doesn't count. It does count. People count those votes too. Your dude is not going to win, however, and your vote might be the reason the lesser of two evils loses. Also people will think you suck, but they don't have to know you did it. Voting is anonymous! But if you must tell, living with the sneers and hatred of your friends and family is not so bad, trust me—I wrote-in a candidate in 2000. My sister blamed me for Al Gore’s loss, and truthfully there are moments when I blame myself, but we still have Christmas and everything. Sometimes you need to stand on principle and speak your mind. That write-in vote lets anyone who is paying attention know that you would rather vote for Dora the Explorer than either of the two major party candidates on the ballot. If that’s how you and your people feel, for the love of Christ, please make those feelings known, and in a few years I swear you will start to see more young Latina women on your ballots.

Maybe you’d like to see campaign finance reform or the end of the dreaded Electoral College? Maybe you want more than just two parties running the whole show?  Perhaps you’d like to decriminalize marijuana or get the church out of government and the government out of your sex life once and for all? You’re far from alone, but until you—and everyone like you—start voting no one will give a damn and nothing will ever look like you want it to. You will be like a guy who couldn't be bothered to order himself dinner and later wonders why his food never came. Do you want to be a guy like that? That guy’s pretty stupid, and he’s very, very lazy.

Billions of dollars are spent to influence your vote, but it’s one of the only things you have that can’t be bought. It’s something you have that corporations don’t have. Your vote is powerful and therefore coveted, and even if you work at the mall and you drive a 1995 Nissan pick up truck with no headliner in the cab, your vote still counts the same as Bill Gates's. Which is once. Why the hell do you think people are spending so much money to influence your opinion? It isn’t because they enjoy the way you complain about other people always talking politics on Facebook—everyone’s sick of your complaining— it’s because they want that vote.

But it doesn't mean you’re going to win, OK?

In the interest of at least trying to be a rational person I had a talk with myself last week about the possibility of a Romney/Ryan victory. It was a nice, calm talk, and with the exception being conducted with only myself and mostly out loud, it was pretty rational. Please don't get me wrong here, I love Barack Obama. Furthermore, I do not want Mitt Romney to be the president. I have felt pretty strongly about that since the moment I learned that not only did he strap his dog to the roof of his car for a 12-hour ride, his people thought the story of him doing so was more of an amusing anecdote than a tale of a deeply regrettable decision. To me, that says he’s a bad man who is being handled by worse men, and though I could come up with another three-dozen solid, researched and very rational reasons not to vote for him, that first one was enough. But do you know what? If he wins I’m going to live through it. I lived through W. and I can handle Mittens. 

Above all else, I have decided that I will not be one of those hysterical liberals who threatens to move to Canada or Europe if a Republican is elected president. It’s a distasteful and empty mantra. Besides, I know better than anyone that if I had the inclination and ability to up and move to any country I wanted any time I didn’t get my way I would have left the good old U.S.A. some time ago. There are a lot of great reasons to live in these other countries—better maple syrup and cheese, for example, or a desire to see more men in Capri pants, but not getting your way in an election is not one of them, you lazy, lazy asshole. Democracy is a process, after all, not a guarantee that you get what you want just because you tried really hard, or cared a whole lot, or whatever it is that your hippy parents told you about how life works. Besides, I like it here. In fact, I like it here enough to stick around and try to make it a better place. So I vote.  Hell, I vote early and I don’t wear a sticker to tell everyone that I did it– just like I don’t get a gold star when I clean up my room or a lollipop when I get a flu shot.  I am admittedly a crank and obviously no fun at all, but what’s more: I’m a fucking grown-up, and voting is part of the job description. When you grow up and stop expecting other people to take care of things for you, you’ll vote too.