Voting, Yes No Maybe

Since the category is heated debates I thought I'd throw out an issue I don't see often enough except at election time and then its usually a bunch of whining (have done it some myself) about the lack of good choices or how bad the candidates are or how wasted your vote seems.

Recently I've thought a great deal about this from the viewpoint of who should have the right to vote and I have come to one conclusion.
Ultimately those who should have the right to vote are only those who are willing to take responsibility for their vote (win or lose).

Today's vote is often just an exercise in self delusion. With significant voter fraud, low information voters and outright dishonesty about a candidates intentions/motives etc I find it more and more difficult to think that my vote actually matters and in some ways it does not.

I just wanted to see where this topic might take us.

I am, at this time, unsure of how to debate this subject since I agree with you. ^_^;

What voter fraud (is this in general or in the US)? I agree with all your other problems with the voting system.

My biggest issue in the grand scheme of things is that almost every election I've voted in, no candidate has truly earned the right to my vote, particularly in the last election.

_-Scarlett-_ wrote:What voter fraud (is this in general or in the US)?  I agree with all your other problems with the voting system.

Yeah, I got stuck there too. It depends on whether you want to lump in redrawing districts as fraudulent as well. There is absolutely some voter fraud, and it wouldn't be a stretch to think that there's likely some we don't know about.

Of course, if you're speaking to things such as people voting twice, illegals voting, etc., those things are too minimal to bring up.

When I was in college, I seriously annoyed the activists. I flat-out refused to vote. And if that weren't enough, I did so on moral grounds. I honestly thought that it would be immoral for me to vote.

There were two reasons for this.

First, I wasn't going to live there very long. My profession pretty much necessitated me moving out of the area. So anything I voted for/against would be enacted on people other than me, while I would avoid the consequences. In such a situation I believe the moral stance is to abstain from voting.

Secondly, I was ignorant of the issues. I was devoting the whole of my academic ability to discovering the nature of the Earth; I had nothing left for politics. I didn't know the issues, didn't know the politicians, and--which is what made voting immoral--I had a firm belief that uninformed opinions are worthless (still do, in fact).

I'm a bit more active in politics now. I've lived in one area long enough, and have put forth sufficient effort, to understand some of the political issues involved. I still vote for any non-incumbant when I'm in doubt (I live in California; the incumbants quite obviously are not working out for us, and it's to the point where random chance is as good as anything else for who'll take over), but I do have opinions on a number of the issues on the ballots. Informed opinions, which I could defend (it's been a while since November) in an argument. So I've finally reached a stage where voting isn't flagrant fraud on my part. Until last year, though, it would have been. And I cannot justify committing fraud, so I abstained from voting.

I typically abstain from voting for the same reasons.

I don't normally vote because there's usually no one worthy enough to vote for. Plus I don't like the whole electoral college crap. And by that I mean if you live in a primarily Republican state, you're not going to elect a Democratic candidate, much less any other party.

It's a "your vote counts, but not really" system.

It was less so when the Federal government was "weaker" than the Leviathan it has become.

I think if power was less centralized the electoral collage would work better.

Direct elections of coalition governments dont work so well either. I think most of the ills in the current situation stem from 2 things.

1) The federal government has slipped the bonds of enumerated powers.

2) There is a overly large number of voters that participate in the system by sound byte and have no concept of government they are either advocating or electing by their vote.

rainshadow wrote:My biggest issue in the grand scheme of things is that almost every election I've voted in, no candidate has truly earned the right to my vote, particularly in the last election.

This. Just because you willing to vote doesn't mean you have a good option to vote with.

"A bullet to the head vs a bullet to the heart" is not so much different when putting to a vote. Such is the case in almost all election.

there has been an increasing number of people changing their voting registration to the overwhelming majority in order to feel that their vote does in fact "matter." Voting for the other party in my area does very much feel like you're throwing your vote away which is depressing. The past few elections have felt like choosing the lesser of 2 evils rather than having a candidate that I truly believe in and agree with.

Though it has been very discouraging, I will always vote simply because I believe I have a responsibility to do so.