Reading the 2014 Voter Turnout statistics, I'd have to say that I'm pretty appalled. Maine had the highest turnout, a whopping 59.3% of eligible voters. Indiana weighed in at an abysmal 36%. I just don't get it, the vote is the most precious thing that a citizen of These United States possesses. I know that people are swamped at work, and that obstacles have been placed in the way of certain voters in certain districts, but I don't this sufficiently explains how low the participation in the election was.
I can't wrap my head around the wholesale apathy that afflicts this nation. I, myself, love to vote... I have friends working the poll site, I enjoy the act of casting a ballot (though it doesn't have the same visceral appeal of using one of the old-school mechanical voting machines), and most of all I enjoy having agency. I just don't get the whole "sitting it out" thing. Am I the freak here?
Wretched cynic that I am I've nonetheless voted in quite literally every election (even L.A.'s odd-yr. municipal elections) since 1972, when I went to the effort to cast my first vote as an absentee from college. (Backed the loser then too.)
ReplyDeleteSez here that around a third of those eligible aren't registered.
In the 2008 elections, the voting rate for all eligible persons of voting age was only 64 percent, while the voting rate for people who were registered to vote was 90 percent – showing that registration is key to turnout.
I didn't know turnout was so high among the registered, but that is the presidential, not these pesky mid-terms.
Yep you are the freak. If i vote nothing at home/abroad will get better. People abroad are being tortured,raped,killed,ethnically cleansed by American allies/soldiers. Here at home civil liberties are sneered at, and the rich rule everything. To vote is to give your approval to the evils done by the Ds and Rs and makes you the sort of corrupted, psychopaths that they are. When a child dies in Palestine you(and your poll monitoring friends) are every bit as responsible as the Israeli that shot the child.
ReplyDeleteI don't enjoy voting per se. I do it out of a sense of civic obligation. I wish I had better candidates and a better state democratic party, but I won't let our governor sail to reelection without spending a shit ton of the Koch brother's cash.
ReplyDeleteIt's Simple, Big. You hit on it yourself. Agency - people don't believe they have it. It's part American apathy and indifference, but it's also a big part a reflection of the massive levels of corruption in the American electoral system. Nobody feels that anything is going to change whether they vote or not. Plus, the old and the rich are voting for policies that actively defend their wealth, while the rest of us are voting for policies we know won't be implemented, or against policies we fear will be...
ReplyDeletePart of the problem is the change we want will never be immediate. It took a couple hundred years for the country to evolve to the state its in now. When conditions get intolerable people are motivated to get out and vote. But, for most, it is hard to see the difference between tolerable and slightly more tolerable and thus they lose the motivation to vote and make the difference that would move us closer to the ideal over a couple of generations.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said... [worthless ranting skipped]
ReplyDeleteThis is why we can't have nice things.
Wretched cynic that I am I've nonetheless voted in quite literally every election (even L.A.'s odd-yr. municipal elections) since 1972
ReplyDeleteI know in your heart you're an idealist.
When a child dies in Palestine you(and your poll monitoring friends) are every bit as responsible as the Israeli that shot the child.
Well, aren't we precious. Well, if you really think that sitting back and allowing a bunch of people that not only want to see the Palestinians (and the Israelis, for that matter, they are an apocalypic cult) get obliterated is okay, then you have that Palestinian child's blood on your hands as well. I'll go you one better... That kid from Honduras who will be sent back to Tegucigalpa to be killed by a gang? His blood is on your hands. The girl in Plano, Texas, who dies because she can't terminate an ectopic pregnancy? Her blood is on your hands. Those black kids gunned down by middle-aged white creeps invoking ALEC sponsored "stand your ground" laws? Their blood is on your hands. Why, look, you're in blood up to your chinny-chin-chin. Well, at least you had the courage, moral fiber, and purity of heart to sit on your ass and eat Mallomars while the deluded folks went to the polls.
I wish I had better candidates and a better state democratic party, but I won't let our governor sail to reelection without spending a shit ton of the Koch brother's cash.
I'm of the "Thom Hartmann" school here, get involved, force the party to change in the direction you want it to move. I voted a straight "Working Families" ticket, which overlapped with the Democratic ticket, but represents the leftmost wing of the party.
gency - people don't believe they have it. It's part American apathy and indifference, but it's also a big part a reflection of the massive levels of corruption in the American electoral system. Nobody feels that anything is going to change whether they vote or not. Plus, the old and the rich are voting for policies that actively defend their wealth, while the rest of us are voting for policies we know won't be implemented, or against policies we fear will be...
I have a problem with people giving up without so much as a fight.
Part of the problem is the change we want will never be immediate. It took a couple hundred years for the country to evolve to the state its in now. When conditions get intolerable people are motivated to get out and vote. But, for most, it is hard to see the difference between tolerable and slightly more tolerable and thus they lose the motivation to vote and make the difference that would move us closer to the ideal over a couple of generations.
There's a term in evolutionary biology, punctuated equilibrium, which describes long periods of quiescence interspersed with rapid bursts of evolutionary change due to environmental factors. We have these periodic lurches (I'd say that the same-sex marriage and marijuana decriminalization issues are undergoing rapid change now) towards a more equitable society, but apathy causes it to occur in a "two steps forward, one or two steps back" fashion.
This is why we can't have nice things.
It's a small price to pay for anonymous' purity and self-righteousness.