Quote:
Originally Posted by Melissa
I've always voted Democrat but purely because they are the lesser evil. Although I question this, too. I'm getting to the point where I think I am just going to vote in local elections as it is these elections that have the most material effects on my life.
Melissa
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Can I urge you, plead with you, to continue to vote in national elections? I understand your point and there's validity to it--right up until the point where they pass a Constitutional amendment or pass some Federal law that passes Constitutional muster. However, the numbers are really, really desperate and I hope that after walking you through them, you'll see why I am so passionate to have people vote in national elections.
At present only about 30% of the American populace that is eligible to vote actually does so. There's roughly 300 million people in the country. With our current demographic distribution, about 75% of them are of voting age (225,000,000). Of those shave about a million currently incarcerated and let's say another million or so ineligible to vote because they are ex-felons. That's 223 million eligible voters. Say there's another 5 million people in the U.S. who are ineligible because of citizenship status (they are non-citizens of one stripe or another). That leaves us with about 218 million eligible voters in the country. Of those, only approximately 65 million of us actually vote.
If THAT doesn't keep you up at night worry for the health of our republic, consider this: during primaries, it is almost always the activists, the *most* dedicated members of either political party that bother to vote. That's about 10% of each party. If you split the 60 million right about down the middle that means that about 3 million people *nationally* are choosing the standard bearers for the respective two major political parties. So roughly 2% of the population is making the choice of who the other 22% of the population is going to choose come election day.
I understand the disgust with national politics. There is much to be disgusted with. However, too many of us have already withdrawn from the political process to, as far as I can tell, no good effect. We--myself included--like to blame the politicians and they carry a great deal of the stain but this isn't THEIR democracy! It isn't Wall Street's democracy. It isn't BP's democracy. it is OUR democracy and if we have national politics that are disgusting perhaps we have the national political leaders we deserve.
If you are a patriotic bent I'm going to try one last desperate attempt with that lever to get you to reconsider--in America we actually ask surprisingly little of our citizens. Outside of the requisite obedience to the law (not murdering, etc.) the only thing I can think of that we actually *require* are that you pay your taxes and serve on juries--and the latter of those is avoidable if you know how to get yourself excluded from the jury pool quickly. (Hint: mention ANY activism you've done in the past) We have no compulsory military service or any other form of national service. We ask that you vote but no one is compelled to do so. Isn't voting the very least we can do to try to have a nation worthy of the name America?
So I'm going to close where I began--you will, of course, do as you wish as is your right but I plead with you to reconsider and continue voting in national elections, as frustrating and seemingly pointless as it might seem.
Cheers
Aj