A Voting Story
My first semester in college, I had a poli sci class with an adjunct professor who told us not to vote. It was the 1996 presidential election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, and he said that no matter what we did, our vote would not change the result of the election. There is never an election that is determined by just one vote, or 30 for that matter (the size of our class), he said. So, by his reasoning, we would be doing more harm than good by burning the gas to drive to the polls to cast a meaning less vote.
I thought he was joking, but he was not.
Years went by, and in the summer of 2000, I ran into the same guy in the pit and we struct up a conversation. He had dropped out of the doctoral program at UNC and had wandered through Asia and hiked the AT before returning to school refreshed and ready to complete his degree. But more interesting than those stories though, was his claim that he had changed his mind about voting.
A year after my class with him, as a joke, another student had written him in on a ballot for a graduate representative for the UNC student government. It turns out that the only other person to vote in the election was the only guy who was running, who voted for himself. The 1 to 1 tie in votes forced a run-off that spurred a huge underground effort to elect my prof. He won by a landslide without even participating in the election.
Unfortunately, the student government meetings conflicted with his bowling league, so he declined the election. However, the experience changed him in some small way, and he told me he planned to vote in the 2000 presidential cycle--the election that was eventually won on the basis of a cuople hundred disputed hanging chads.
I'm sure there is a moral to that story, but basically it's just a funny tale for election day. Happy voting!!!!
7 Comments
Leave a comment
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: A Voting Story.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.milestravis.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/134
That is a great story. I certainly felt more empowered today as I voted knowing that the local delegates are really going to matter in this race. I even saw someone mention North Carolina as a potentially important state primary down the road. When was the last time that happened?!
Really the 2000 election was not decided by a few hundred disputed hanging chads but rather by 9 members of the supreme court. They voted 7-2 that the Florida recount was unconstitutional and 5-4 that Florida could not resolve the matter in the time limit set forth by the Florida Leg.
So in a very mixed up way this election might seem to have been decided by just one vote.
I'd say that if you were voting for the President of the US and you were one of nine I would probably think it was worth voting, otherwise I would tend to agree with the prof, only worth your time and effort if it makes you feel good.
I vote, and have ever since I turned 18.
At best, I've had a say in the future of my country/state/county/whatever.
At worst, at least I have a right to complain when things start to go downhill.
(tongue in cheek, of course....)
In any case, if one could add up all of the votes of people who thought their votes wouldn't matter and so didn't bother, that number would definitely influence the outcome of any election. Agree?
Confession: I didn't vote yesterday. I could have voted on either side of the aisle, but don't really care on the democratic side if it's Obama or Rodham Clinton and on the republican side, I'm leaning toward McCain, but not enough to care who gets the nod. It's not an issue for me of apathy, but rather no preference. That's not apathy, is it? I will likely vote in the general election if I don't feel the same way - will likely have State races to vote on anyway.
I agree generally with Elizabeth though.
Elizabeth makes a good point but I think that it would really support my true position. Why do we ingrain it in everyone's mind that it is their patriotic duty to vote instead of ingraining it in everyone's mind that it is their patriotic duty to influence government? Single vote no difference but if you went out and made all of the people who are not voting care enough about what you care about and convince them to vote with you then you could make a difference. Potentially your efforts would be better spent driving and picking up two people that would vote how you would vote than actually voting yourself. Or convincing two people to vote your way.
Evan, the math certainly means that your point works, but surely if somebody bothered to give people a ride to the polls, that person would take the sixty seconds to make those two votes turn into three or whatever. I understand what you mean though, and I think it's a really important point. Being an activist, or even just sharing ideas in one's sphere of influence, makes one's voice more effective than it would be by only casting one secret ballot.
A book I read refers to the image of politicians walking around, licking their fingers, and holding their fingers in the air to find out which way the wind of public sentiment is blowing. The writer suggests that rather than trying to put ourselves in positions of power in which we'd be the ones with our fingers in the air, we should try to be influential by being the wind. I'll continue to put in my two cents with my vote, but I definitely agree with Evan's point, and think that if I really care, I can make even more of a difference in other ways.
Also, while I'm thinking about math and votes making a difference, I'll put in a plug that a vote actually counts way more in a local election than in a national one. And chances are that elected local official is much more likely to do things that actually affect your day-to-day life than the federal ones.