(I’m using Whitman and Fiorina as examples just because I read this editorial, but they aren’t the point of the discussion.)
The editorial claims that this lack of voting could have some impact on Fiorina’s and Whitman’s chances, though the data are hardly certain.
Part of me thinks that it should matter. Someone who doesn’t bother to vote is someone whose opinion of the democratic process isn’t the same as mine. I view voting as an important part of citizenship, and a lack of voting shows a lack of commitment and engagement. Going from “Can’t be bothered to vote” to “I’m a US Senator” is a huge jump. Voting is easy.
On the other hand, not voting in the past doesn’t necessarily say anything about the present or the future. People’s level of engagement can change, and they shouldn’t be penalized for things that didn’t really change anything and caused no harm. Not voting doesn’t necessarily mean not paying attention or not caring, and maybe not being engaged means not being a part of the political machine.
I lean toward the first thought. I expect people to vote and think less of them when they don’t, so I should also think less of a politician who doesn’t. Especially don’t bitch about the state of things when you sat on your ass and did nothing.
But it’s still not what I would consider a big deal or a deal breaker.
Does it matter? Should it matter? Will it matter? Anti-matter?
You are forgetting that “not voting” also is a valid option.
Here’s an (extreme) example. Hitler and Stalin are running for office, who would you vote for?
You’re assuming that her not voting is a matter of apathy rather than making a statement.
If I said I’m not gonna vote for either Stalin or Hitler because they’re both awful, no one would question that.
If I said “I’m not voting because my choice is Obama or McCain,” and the suck, people might question that and say “Why not vote for the ‘lesser’ evil?”
You see it’s really a matter of degree
Also as we learned in Florida and other places you’re vote only counts IF they (whoever they at the time is) CHOOSE to count it.
The right TO vote and also a right NOT to vote, when presented with no acceptable alternatives.
The only way to reasonable expect everyone to cast a vote would be to include a choice of “None of the above” on every ballot in every election.
It should matter, but mostly/only for the recent history. Saying “You didn’t vote the year you turned 18!” would be dumb, I think. Obama was smoking reefer at 18, and nobody really judged him for that.
But if someone wanted into office and they couldn’t find the time to vote in the last 4 elections, you’d have to wonder what else they wouldn’t have time to do.
I guess it also brings into question which is better, someone who’s been wanting to run for office since grade school, or someone who hadn’t even thought of it until a month ago. On one hand, our founding fathers weren’t raised as politicians and statesmen, they just became so when the need arose and could probably better represent average joes. On the otherhand, you could get someone so wealthy and bored with life that they figure public office is the only thing they haven’t done yet. Then again again, someone bred for politics their whole life probably doesn’t have a very realistic view of the world.
Whitman was probably hoping to get some kind of appointment from McCain.
Considering the number of “lesser” offices typically on the ballot: senators, representatives, state legislature positions, state office positions, judges, sherrifs, local positions, referendums, etc, I wouldn’t really accept “I didn’t like either choice for president” as a valid excuse for not voting. Just skip that part of the ballot. It’s 100% your right to not vote because you’re busy, lazy, sick or whatever but pawning off your entire responsibility and blaming it on the top of the ballot just seems lame.
I agree that not voting can be a valid position to take in protest or something, but it’s the most useless form of protest there can ever be. If the vote is “murder babies” vs “murder war veterans,” one of the two is going to win no matter what unless absolutely nobody votes (I’d go ahead and call that impossible), and by not voting all you’re doing is increasing the likelihood of the worse of the two passing.
Or, for a more realistic example, say there’s a vote to change the abortion legislation. The only two options are “allow partial birth abortion as well as early-term abortion” and “only allow early-term abortion”, someone entirely against abortion may choose not to vote at all because, to them, every form of abortion is wrong. But in doing so, their uncast vote raises the chances that the “partial-birth” option wins, even though they would consider that much worse than early-term. If the anti-abortion person had simply voted for the “lesser of two evils,” they would at least have accomplished something (eliminating partial-births), but by doing nothing, they worked against themselves.
I could theoretically see not voting in the general election – I sat out the mayoral race in Philly in '87, when my choices were Wilson Goode (bombed a cult in West Philly) and Frank Rizzo (racist former cop) – but there’s no excuse for not voting in a primary if you take the electoral process seriously.
I personally couldn’t vote for someone for public office who can’t be arsed to vote him- or herself.
Well, I think we can all agree Carly Fiorina is an awful, dreadful person, and should probably be forcibly relocated to the moon. That’s not the topic.
If one candidate is much closer to my own political leanings than the other, then should I vote for the person I disagree with just because the other person didn’t vote? Seems to me that “not voting” is way down on the priority list when picking between candidates. Maybe it would make more sense to consider this issue in a primary, where the candidates are more likely to be politically similar.
I don’t trust politicians who don’t vote. Like Sarah Palin, they think of each job as a stepping stone, not something worth doing in itself. Always just trying to climb the ladder instead of doing the business at hand.
Not for an informed electorate. Voting records on contentious issues can get them into hot water at fund raisers or during opponents election advertisements, but it is still the job they were hired to do.
Also, keep in mind that in CA, the last few elections weren’t even close. If all we’re talking about is presidential elections, I’m not surprised that a lot of Republicans wouldn’t bother to vote.
Things get more tricky when you get down to how a candidate voted, rather then if they did.
The biggest travesty in politics is a candidate trying to use what his opponent voted “against”, against him.
I remember in the last 19-year election cycle, the McCains would often try to say that Obama “voted against funding the troops!” When he simply voted against one proposed budget that, besides funding the troops, did some stuff he didn’t like. McCain, of course, voted against a different proposed budget that, besides funding the troops, did some stuff he didn’t like. So, in the same regard that Obama voted against funding the troops, McCain did too. It’s all a big clusterfutch.
there usually is a third or forth choice that has no hope of winning that you can pull the lever for.
there is rarely just one office running at an election vote. if you don’t want to vote for president, there maybe senator, congress, state offices, and city offices to vote for.
If I were presented with a choice between Hitler and Stalin, I’d write in somebody. OK, the guy I wrote in isn’t going to win, but at least there’s going to be a tally kept somewhere of how many people voted write-in. It’s a protest that’d be heard by somebody. Just not voting at all, though, is completely worthless as a protest, because it’s indistinguishable from not voting because you just don’t care.
I wouldn’t believe in the first place that a candidate who didn’t vote was close to my political leanings, because I don’t think such a person has much in the way of political leanings. If the issues that are important to me were genuinely important to them too, then they would have voted on them.
If there was one candidate who was nearer to your political leanings, but would most likely be terrible at his job, would you prefer him to someone with whom you disagree about most things, but would probably be better at the job?
I was thinking about that earlier, with the example case being Bill Maher and John McCain running for president. I might agree with more with Bill Maher on political matters than I do with John McCain, but Bill Maher would be an absolutely terrible president whereas McCain at least has had a real job and would be less disastrous as president.
So besides picking someone with whom you share ideals, you should pick someone also who would be better at the job. When people dissolve a presidential race down to issues like abortion and gay marriage, when those matters affect you very little, and matter very little in the function of president, you’re not doing the world any favors.
My mom may like Sarah Palin because of her speaking relationship with jesus, but I hope she’d understand that you need more than that in the midst of an international crisis.
During the campaign, I kept having this vision in my head where President McCain’s Air Force One disappears from radar over the Pacific and satellite imagery shows increased troop movement on the North Korean border. Vice President Palin is awoken and escorted down to the situation room where people are loudly arguing about the 23rd amendment. The Secretary of Defense explains the situation, that there could very well be a technical problem, but since the president is out of communication, control of the entire military and our nuclear arsenal lies in her hands.
To have a photograph of the look on her face at that moment would be worth the inevitable obliteration of life on earth.
No,
but there are at least two ways to “not vote” and exercise that option semi-validly.
Way 1, going to the polls and casting a blank ballot. You haven’t voted for either person or position (or any of the numerous person or positions that are on the ballot because with the exception of the California Recall Ballot how many of those were one issue elections?) If someone does that, then it shows up in the record that they voted and took the time to engage in one of the least onerous civic duties there is.
Way 2 would be to have records of statements dating near or around the missed votes that lay out your position that you’re conciously choosing not to vote because you find none of the available options acceptable.
But their spotty records read “couldn’t be arsed” which is not quite so valid.
A candidate’s policy views, experience and temperament matter more to me than whether or not she’s voted as often as I have (and I’ve missed very few elections over the years). That said, I would be troubled if a candidate I otherwise liked hadn’t bothered to vote much. It wouldn’t be a dealbreaker, but I wouldn’t like it. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
