Why bother to Vote?

The BBQ Pit
1

I have to vent: I think polls prior to an election should be outlawed. Why? Before Super Tues= today…7 Mar…Polls showed Bush to be the winner over McCain. And hours before the polls even close here in Cal., the media projects the winners in Ohio and Georgia, Vermont etc. Why bother to vote when the winner is known? Few of us are going to insist on voting for someone when we know he is going to lose badly.

I know all about Dewey and Truman and I’m also aware that voting gives us a chance to vote on local and/or state issues. But I’m certain you will agree with me that many, many people are influenced significantly by the polls and the Media…

The closest I ever got to a 4.0 in high school was my blood alcohol content.

2

FWIW, most of the media (with some notable exceptions, such as the e-zine Salon) voluntarily refrain from announcing projections until the polls close in their precincts.

Not much consolation, but it’s a little help.

-andros-

3

IMHO, if we want to maintain an independent fourth estate (and I certainly do), then we have to allow news organizations the right to generate and announce the results of election polls. After all, the whole point of those things is to inform us as to what’s going on.

I’m not at all in favor of the government dictating to news organizations what they can and cannot report on. That’s a slippery slope to start gliding on.

4

You should vote because, with all of their “scientific” polling and political “experts” the goddamn media get it FLAT OUT WRONG a heck of lot of the time.

Remember the congressional elections of 1994, where Newt Gingrich and his band of merry men swept into Congress. The entire mainstream media establishment was floored by that. They had no idea it was coming. Not even close.

How about Jesse “the Body” Ventura. Before the election he was a laughingstock to the media. After the election he was governor.

The media’s political commentators are a bunch of gassed out windbags, who are only interested in showing how much they know about the political “process” while having no idea about the wants, hopes, dreams, and desires of the voting public. Political reporters are only useful for spewing out the candidate’s campaign spin or latching onto irrelevant issues and treating them like they are the keys to the elections.
The degree to which pollsters and political cosultants can confound the media is incredible.

Polls make easy media fodder because the talking heads can sit there and confidently state that 37% of likely voters would prefer Bush, 32% would prefer McCain, 22% would prefer to have live chickens stuffed up their butts than to have to vote for either them, and the remaining 9% are undecided between McCain and the chicken up the butt (with a 4% margin of error), without understanding how the poll was conducted, what the results mean, the limitations of the survey techniques, why survey results differ from vote totals, or anything else but those nice round shiny numbers. It makes them look so intelligent and well informed to be able to state confidently that 22% of the people are chicken butt stuffers.

I had the opportunity to vote today, but I declined to do so because, despite being a daily newspaper reader and television news watcher, I have no idea who I should vote for (or against). If I had a strong feeling (or even a weak one) about which candidate I prefer, I would vote, but they each have about balancing strengths and weaknesses.

The truly disturbing part is that as bad as the media is, the candidates campaigns are worse, leaving no real way to determine what the candidates are like or what their positions are other than the most carefully vetted fluff, or ridiculous positions designed to pander to some influential minor voting block or group of fundraisers.

So if you have an opinon, vote, and prove the media and spin-meisters wrong once again.

5

Okay, at the moment, according to http://cnn.com , here are the results:

Bush: GA, ME, MD, MO, OH

McCain: CT, MA, VT, RI

Bradley: No states won.

Gore: CT, GA, MA, MD, MO, OH, VT, ME, NY

If this is true, I’d say it’s over for Bradley, but McCain still has a chance to beat Bush. I’d prefer Bradley over Gore, but I prefer Gore over both McCain or Bush.

Note that no candidates have yet won California because, I think, the polls are still open here. MadSam has a point, but so does WillGolf. Reporting poll results is a balancing act and every news outlet is in a race to be the first to break the news. And, in our fast-food culture, we Amurrikens want to know who won NOW, DAMMIT!! So, the folks in the East find out who won before many on the West Coast have even voted. But telling those same outlets they cannot report the results as soon as the polls are closed is a violation of the First Amendment.

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

All I can suggest, MadSam, is that you vote in the morning or during your lunch-break.

When all else fails, ask Cecil.

6

Jab1: I voted several weeks ago by absentee ballot. Many of my friends,however, didn’t make it to the polls today…Excuse: We knew it was going to be Gore vs Bush in Nov.

The closest I ever got to a 4.0 in high school was my blood alcohol content.

7

FWIW,

I am a Libertarian…I can’t vote in my states primary this Friday…

As for voting, no matter your political views, it is very very important that you vote. Man, if you are for some obscure communist party, Free Love Party or KKK party candidate get your ass out there and vote…

If you think so strongly about not voting because so many people look to the most “popular” candidate, then get out there and help campaign for the candidate you honestly believe in. Get out there and be involved. I can say this because I am knee deep in the political process right now after 7 years of looking for the right party and issues I believe in.

I don’t see this as a popularity contest, I see this as a country in crisis issue. I believe in my presidential candidate and am committed to getting the word out. I will use the media, locally, to help further my cause. Hopefully this will turn the tides for the truth.

According to what I have heard, only 37% of those able to vote actually vote, think about it. Just think about it. That is 37% of those legally allowed to vote, people deciding issues and policies for 274,000,000 people and you have to take into consideration that of that 274 million people, millions are children.

I would be interested in finding out how many of that 274 million are actual of legal status to vote…might make for some interesting discussion!

8

Techchick,
Think of it this way: If only 37% of the eligible voters vote, and it takes a majority to pass a law, elect a person, etc., then 18.6% of the voters are making rules for the other 81.4%.

Exit polls.
On the one hand, it’s the right of the People to know the news. It’s the right of the News to report it.

On the other hand, if you’re for Candidate Y and you hear than Candidate X has won in eastern states, you might say “What’s the use?” and not vote. In that case, the report of the exit polls might have changed the outcome in your state.

9

Well, that’s not impossible, Johnny. The average spineless, uninformed, medieval serf in citizen’s guise, who supports “motor voter” registration and voting via the Internet on Sundays because it makes voting so much easier, probably will say, “What’s the use?”, and stay home. After all, he was just barely reconciled to missing ten minutes of Friends to vote anyway.

Of course, the savvy, connected person will probably chuckle to herself, thinking, “Good, the sheep are staying away in droves”, go to the polls, vote, go back to campaign headquarters (not home!), rustle up ten people who think the same way she does, and drive them to the polls to vote.

The next morning, a “upset victory” will be reported, the people who didn’t vote will be grousing that they can’t even trust CNN, and the activist will be giggling all the way to the convention.

“I don’t just want you to feel envy. I want you to suffer, I want you to bleed, I want you to die a little bit each day. And I want you to thank me for it.” – What “Let’s just be friends” really means

10

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” --Abraham Lincoln.

Today, politicians seem to believe, “Fooling enough of the people some of the time is all you really need to do to win.” Unfortunately, this seems to be true.

BTW, you guys are free to give me fifty lashes for neglecting to register to vote last month. I didn’t vote yesterday. I’m a great procrastinator: “Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can avoid altogether.”

When all else fails, ask Cecil.

11

I voted against Cal. Prop. 22. This is the initiative that says same-sex marriages that take place in other states will not be recognized in California.

Being straight, I don’t really care what gay people do; but almost 2/3 of the voters apparently do. It passed.

12

I’m from Cal also and I, too, am straight and voted against Prop 22 because I haven’t heard sufficient answers to why I should vote yes.

But the Californians were smart enough to negate Prop 30 and 31 both strongly supported by trial lawyers.

The closest I ever got to a 4.0 in high school was my blood alcohol content.

13

I don’t knwo who originally said it, but I agree:

“If democracy really worked, it would be outlawed immediately.”

Look at Washington State. We got a huge ‘Tomb of the Lost Griffey’ to the tune of $518 million dollars, and we voted against building it. Of course, the state/local government was smarter than to listen to their voters, so they overturned it. The baseball stadium project had somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million dollars of cost overruns, and we’ll probably have to eat that too.

On the other hand, the vehicle tabs proposition passed, and all of a sudden it’s being checked for ‘constitutionality’ i.e. ‘we didn’t know it would cause us to examine state government practices and tighten our belts, so screw you, Mr. Voter’.

After these two examples, I’ve pretty much given up that voting will fix anything. Sure, we would all like to believe there is a ‘Jesse the Body’ story waiting to happen everywhere, but I’m not seeing it.

-sb

“This is going to take a special blend of psychology and extreme violence.”

14

Jesse Ventura is nothing more than a politician with a new disguise. The myth of his popularity is perpetuated by people who know nothing about him.

15

For that matter, does anyone believe that a lobbyist succeeds by convincing a politician to vote his way without the issuance of donations to campaigns or superperks? That
$70,000,000 that the good governor from Texas got: I do believe that there is a payback expected there…or am I too much of a cynic?