Growing up and going to relatively “good” (albeit public) schools in the U.S., I was constantly indoctrinated with the importance of voting and what an enormous travesty it was that only X% of the voting-eligible public actually bothers to vote, even in presidential elections.
It seems to me that voting ignorant is probably worse than abstaining from a vote (for example in the recent midterm election I abstained from many of the judicial nominations for whom I didn’t have the time nor inclination to research), so why not leave voting to the people who actually do care about the issues and the future of their country? Not only does it cut down on the possibility of a candidate or proposition winning by dumb (uninformed) luck, but it means that the votes that are cast are worth that much more.
In fact, why encourage voting at all? Those who are educated enough to know the importance of it are already motivated enough that they will go out of their way to do it. Does perhaps one party (and I won’t name names, but let’s just say “hee-haw”) believe that the majority of apathetics are really their target demographic, if only they cared enough to vote? Have their been any studies proving or disproving this belief? Which begs the question: if they don’t care enough to vote, how do you get this sector to care enough to participate in such a study? Or is it simply a matter of demographics alone, i.e. many young and/or poor people are among non-voters, and these are the same groups that most often lean left?
So in summary I contend that if apathetics can’t be bothered to fill out a ballot (and it’s easier than ever these days with early voting by touchscreen), they don’t deserve to have their interests represented in Congress. What’s the counter-argument to this?
I don’t agree with the notion that everybody should vote. A lot of people either don’t keep up with the issues or the issues don’t affect them enough to give them a stake in the outcome. If that is the case, then I believe they should not feel obliged to vote. If X% of the people don’t vote, then I think that is a good sign that so many people are content enough with the system to trust their fellow citizens to pick their elected officials for them.
I prefer apatheics voting to single-issue or bloc voters voting. With apathetics, there’s a chance that they will actually summarize issues/personalities and come up with a decision that is at least nominally critical-thinking-based.
If your school only encouraged you to vote and did not encourage you to stay educated about issues and candidates, then your school did a terrible job.
I have no problem with the apathetic not voting. I would prefer if there were less apathetic citizens and more educated voting.
As would I. It consistently amazes me how many people decide how they’ll vote based on rumors they’ve heard or what their friend/boss/preacher/relative said about an issue.
During the last election, Hubby asked his class how many intended to vote, and the ones who said that they did had very firm opinions. However, they couldn’t answer simple questions about the issues or candidates. Only a few said that they had done any research, even reading a newspaper article.
Wasn’t it Plato who said that a people gets the kind of government it deserves?
People who are so uninformed that they’re basically picking randomly or voting for the guy with the toughest-sounding name, yeah, I’d prefer they just stay home. But a little past that-- what about the guy who votes straight-ticket Republican because he’s pro-life and doesn’t care about any other issues, or the guy who votes for a Democratic senator because of a vaque “bring the troops home” sentiment, even though he didn’t know the candidates’ names before he entered the booth? Those of us on this board would probably say that those people have a simplistic or ignorant understanding of the election, but they have some knowledge at least. How do you draw the line where “some” becomes “enough”?
There is a benefit to the process of votes from people who know, and care nothing about the process. Their votes don’t have much specific effect, candidate wise, but they matter in terms of politicians finding “a mandate” in the results. If the other half of the folks who could have voted in the last election had done so, the current frothing at the mouth about the incoming party’s clear mandate to make changes would be cut in half, at least statistically. (assuming half the apathy block would vote each way.)
It gives the elected a more subdued rate of approval. “You are not loved, you are merely tolerated.”
IMO, the one big advantage to not voting is…No matter who wins, you can still complain about whoever wins the election with the added bonus of saying " I sure didn’t vote for…?
I don’t know whether this mindset is active in a significant percentage of apathetics, but it’s one I used to use back when I was young and stupid.
Actually, as a non-voter, I keep getting told that I don’t have a right to complain if I don’t vote. The reasoning for this is usually specious, at best, but nobody is impressed when I tell them “I didn’t vote for anybody, because I didn’t like anybody, and by gum, this particular guy I didn’t pick really does suck, doesn’t he?”
It’s sort of like being the atheist of politics; sure, you don’t believe in any false god/bad politician, but nobody likes you anyway.
I fully support voting by apathetics, particularly those who choose a candidate at random. Low turnout gives politicians the impression that folks aren’t paying attention, which encourages waste, cronyism, and corruption. Presidents and Senators know that everything they do is tracked by the media and watchdog groups, but even so, they may take voter turnout as an indication how much or little the people care. It’s even more important for local offices, where there aren’t any well-organized watchdogs and the only restraints on politicians come from individual citizens.
Also, if turnout sinks too low, it becomes something of a national embarrassment and undermines the legitimacy of democracy.
While random voters might change the outcome once in a while, it can only happen rarely. If 10,000 voters choose by coin toss, it’s statistically guaranteed that they’ll split almost evenly, with about 5,000 votes going each way. Hence they can only change the outcome if the margin was extremely narrow among the well-informed, non-apathetic voters.
I also don’t get why so many people are urged to vote. If people want to participate, let 'em. But don’t try forcing them. I’d rather have educated voters at the polls.
And hey, the fewer people voting, the more my vote counts!
I used to be one of those types who wasn’t satisfied with anyone running for any office and I simply looked down my nose at all politicians and lumped them in together as all being asshats not worthy of my attention. So out of a sense of self rightousness, I abstained from voting and just sat on the sidelines, whining.
In retrospect, had I voted, I would have voted with the same values I hold today, so my vote as an apathetic wouldn’t have been wasted like a coin toss vote, but there would have been the chance my vote was weighted heavily towards a single issue. It might not have been the most informed vote, but at least it would have let the politicians know I was watching.
Even though I voted for 'em, I can still whine about 'em.
I think that all politicians at the national level are likely to be equally scummy/evil/ineffective. This opinion has diminished some in the last few years due to to the remarkable levels of damage done by the Republicans, but this might not imply an impalance of evil; merely an imbalance of opportunity.
I don’t think that either party really represents my views, and I think that voting for a third party has less of an effect in changing the similar major party, than it has in voting in the opposing one.
I live in Idaho. Even if it’s not necessarily true in individual cases, I feel at some fundamental level that the republican will win in all local elections. Also I feel that any non-republican vote (as mine would be) would be swamped for national elections as well, due to the fact that we vote by districts/electoral college, and not countrywide popular vote. (In short, I don’t think my vote matters around here.)
I recognize that being an informed voter is a heck of a lot of work, and I am a lazy cuss who doesn’t want to bother. I have no respect for party line or single-issue voting, yet I don’t want to go through the effort to distingush myself from those who vote that way.
Did I mention I’m a lazy cuss? I barely have the gumption to leave the apartment to buy food. I’d rather list excuses than haul my butt out of my chair, go stand in line, and fill out paperwork or punch buttons. I don’t care if it only takes five minutes. The cost/benefit ratio of voting isn’t enough to inspire me to make the tremendous effort to drive somewhere.
You assume incorrectly that people who vote randomly do so by flipping a coin.
A study done in the late '80’s showed that people whose last name began in the first third of the alphabet did significantly better than other candidates. The reason? They tended to be listed first on ballots, and people who vote randomly tend to just mark off the first names listed.
We complain about gerrymandering right now; wait until we have mandatory voting and true power is concentrated in the hands of those who decide what order people get listed on the ballots in.
Randomly jumble the order in which the candidates are listed. Problem solved. Electronic voting machines could actually randomly permute the order for each individual voter.
Every ballot I’ve ever voted on (admittedly, not all that many due to my tender young age, but there have been several) had the candidates’ names listed in random, non-alphabetical order.
