We’ve just finished another national election, and again I’m wondering what percentage of the votes cast boil down to what I call “Betting on the Horse Race Voting” – the idea that, like in a horse race, the idea is to choose the winner before it’s over. In elections, I wonder how many people vote, not on policies or personalities or ideologies or even parties, but simply on who they think will win the election.
An example that is close to my heart is from my own political history – 9th Grade elections for Student Council. Each homeroom elected one candidate. At the end of the election, I found out that I had lost 17-16. My best friend came up after class and confessed that he had voted against me, because he didn’t think I had a chance. Of course, I’m over it now…
Back to the present, how many people are elected like this? I think it’s part of the de facto 2-party system we have – no one votes for a third party candidate because that candidate isn’t seen as having a shot at winning. Why is that? Because no one will vote for that candidate. It’s a circular-reasoning that, as a habitual third-party supporter, drives me crazy.
Of course, the rebuttal is, “Voting for a sure-loser is throwing your vote away.” But again, that betrays the mindset – a vote is only seen as valuable if it “wins.” And that means that a vote is not seen as something cast in support of an ideology, but rather a crude tool that is only useful if victorious. How many soldiers marched proudly to a battle they knew they would lose?
(I’m not comparing myself to Leonidas)
So my exhortation: come 2016, vote with your conscience, not just your idea of how you’ll “win” if your votes are for the winner. There is no excuse to vote for “the lesser of two evils.” We have enough alternate candidates that one of them should be to your liking. Support them – there’s no shame in supporting the right thing even when it fails, but there is in supporting the wrong, no matter what.
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