This thread is directed at the American citizens, and to anyone else with an election coming up. If your nation allows you the privilege to vote, to not do so is to dishonor those that struggled and/or died to make this possible for you. You guys know how infrequently I actually create new threads. I thought this one was worth talking about.
Some of the reasons people cite for not voting:
Don’t like any of the major candidates
No time
Haven’t kept up with the details
Don’t care
By not voting, you are effectively casting a vote for the one you like the least. Also, if you refuse to vote for this reason, stop your bloody complaining until after the next time you do vote.
You’ve got to be kidding. Most states (or all?) allow you to vote absentee, and many others allow early voting. The time excuse no longer applies.
It’s not too late. If you just don’t care, which you’re bordering on by not having boned-up by now, I’ll get to you in #4. Go to the candidate’s web sites. Read the news sites. Look for news agencies that aren’t obvious in their bias. Talk to your friends.
When it comes to the non-candidate stuff you get to vote on, such as the Prop 8 that’s being discussed in a different thread currently, read up on these carefully. While Prop 8 is an easy yes or no to almost everyone, most of these props and ballot measures are a lot more complex. The only way I can decipher some of them is to look at whose paying for the various ads for and against them. For example, California’s Prop 7 is about getting the state to use a higher percentage of clean energy. the “No” side has a very big budget, and has told us for months that it’s poorly written and it will harm small solar companies, etc. But these ads are paid for by California Edison and other utility companies, among others. That’s an easy Yes for me.
Don’t care? Then why are you even reading this? If you don’t vote, please don’t waste our time with your opinions. Put your vote where your mouth is.
Everyone else, don’t forget to vote! Doesn’t matter which way, but I hope you’ll consider each of your areas of choice carefully, and perhaps not vote on the ones you don’t know about. For example, I didn’t vote on the people running for my local school board. I don’t know any of them, and I don’t have any kids. But I did vote.
Or vote third party. It’s not a waist if it sends a message. A vote for a third party may influence the directions the major parties go as they try to appeal to voters like you.
All joking aside, I do think it’s unfair that atheists are forced to choose between two theists for president. I mean you either vote for a guy you think is delusional or you vote for the other guy you think is delusional. This country has already seen more than its share of delusional presidents. That and so many other reasons, is why my early vote didn’t go to a major party.
So, my fellow unicyclists, if I can take the time to throw away my vote on someone you’ve probably never heard of, then you guys can take the time to vote for someone that’s got a shot at winning.
VOTE! - you have to counter balance the nut jobs, like me, that ARE voting.
Yes, I didn’t mean to leave out third-party candidates. To vote is always better than to sit on the sidelines.
As for voting for delusional candidates, there isn’t much of a choice. No atheist has a chance of getting too high in American politics in the near future. Besides, it’s usually easier to tell the lesser of two delusionals…
I am not any more troubled about having to vote for a theist than I am about having theists for friends. I would like the opportunity to vote for an atheist with an actual chance of winning, but I’d also like the opportunity to vote for a vegetarian who had a chance of winning. But for the time being I’ll have to be content that I have some atheist friends.
I have voted for my share of third party candidates and will do so on Tuesday as well. Just not for president this time.
I don’t know what the voter turnout will be in the states for your election but I hope it beats the Canadian turnout for ours. Voter turnout in the true north strong and free was a dismal 59%, the lowest turnout ever.
Please do your country a favor and show us up. You owe it to yourselves, you owe it to your country, and you owe it to the world.
There’s no point in voting because one person makes no difference when it comes to elections (of course there’s the extremely rare chance that it’s won by one vote but that never happens).
So how do you group vote, or get more votes per person? Somehow people get elected every time, though usually everyone only gets one vote. Except lazy people who get zero.
We have pretty terrible turnout too. It’s embarassing
We should probably apply this line of thinking to charities too. Other people will donate, why should I? Or, you know, unicyclist.com. While I’m at it…
Jerrick, I gotta say, you’re probably not gonna find much love on here for not voting, especially for a reason of essentially apathy. You do have the right to do that, and I won’t think less of you as a person or anything, but it seems very irresponsible to me.
Yes, individual votes are what wins elections but there are many, many, many, many people who make up that total. So I’m saying that if you remove one vote, in the grand scheme of things, it has no effect.
In this case, there are less people who donate to unicyclist.com than vote in U.S.A., thus the individual person who wishes to make a donation is more significant. The higher the number of people voting (or donating), the less important it becomes while the less people voting (or donating), the more important it becomes. If you have three people that vote on the president (rather than all of USA), you’d be stupid not to vote since you have such an important impact, but if you have hundreds of millions of people voting, who cares.
