Still Undecided? Then Just Don't Vote

Still Undecided? Then Just Don't Vote
By Joel Stein
Special to the Los Angeles Times

Don't vote. People will try to guilt you into it, but stay strong and resist. I'm talking to all of you who don't feel strongly about either presidential candidate, not just those 80 undecided idiots seated at Tuesday's town hall-style debate. Those people just crave attention and are way too proud of skimming enough Google News headlines to formulate a question. Give each a hug and a Debate Attendee diploma and I bet they'll pick a candidate real fast.

Voting is not an act of charity. It doesn't help anyone else. It's an entirely selfish act of expressing your opinion and asking for policies you want. If your mere opinion added to our nation's well-being, it would be patriotic to take telemarketing calls. And I'd read the e-mails you send me.
A high voter turnout doesn't make our democracy work better. Canada typically has a turnout of more than 75 percent, and it has yet to pick a leader anyone's heard of. If voting truly helped other people, you'd get an orange drink and cookies along with that ``I voted'' sticker.
Almost half of those who are eligible won't vote this year, and that nonparticipation is a legitimate expression of feelings about our political system. You'll be saying that none of the contenders convinced you but that your vote is available next time to someone who does. It's what I say every week to ``American Idol.''
Organizations that try to increase voter turnout -- Rock the Vote, HeadCount, the New Voters Project, the League of Women Voters and the Dorky Self-Important Guy Whose Office Is Near Yours -- will try to guilt you into casting a ballot. Most will use the scare technique of telling you that if you don't vote, you will forfeit your right to complain, which, if there had just been some Jews at the Constitutional Convention, would have been ensured by an 11th Amendment.
But I'm pretty sure that not voting is the safest way to assure your right to complain. Because if you do vote, the odds are slightly better than even that you're going to vote for the winner, which will ruin your ability to gripe about him. If I were John McCain, I'd put all my money behind ads that say, ``Vote for me so you can complain for the next four years.''
Last week, a heap of celebrities appeared in an online video, self-produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, sarcastically telling people not to vote. After DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher, Natalie Portman, Usher, Demi Moore, Tobey Maguire and Ellen DeGeneres told you not to vote, Courteney Cox asked, ``Who cares about your children's education?'' Jamie Foxx added, ``Who cares about global warming?'' Halle Berry: ``Don't vote. Unless you care about health care.'' Forest Whitaker mentioned welfare and the minimum wage, and Dustin Hoffman talked about gay rights and abortion rights. Then they all pretended they were going to wait around on screen until you click over to a site that will register you to vote. The superior, self-satisfied tone of the video not only made me not want to vote for president, it caused me to throw away my Writers Guild awards ballot.
Such campaigns to increase voter registration all seem disingenuous because they are. There's a reason all the organizations trying to increase the number of voters are full of liberals. It's because poor people, minorities, the undereducated and the young are the least likely to register; the higher the turnout among those groups, the better the Democrats do. The reason no one is trying to ``Country Music the Vote'' is because George Strait fans already vote. We don't ``Rap the Vote'' because the only words that rhyme with ``vote'' are the Democratic-unfriendly ``Swift boat,'' ``zygote'' and ``sports coat.''
But it's not only the political scheming of Democrats. The entire ruling class wants you to vote for the same reason dictators claim a 
100 percent turnout: Casting a ballot tricks you into believing you have as equal a stake in the power structure as the rich and connected. It's a basic political-science axiom that citizens are less likely to revolt if they feel they determined who gets to look down Arianna Huffington's blouse at political soirees.
So feel free not to vote. Just remember, if so many groups' main objective really were to strengthen democracy, America would have gotten rid of the electoral college by now.

Comments

[Bradlee]

Is this tongue in cheek? I don't know for sure, not knowing the author.

If it isn't, I have to agree completely. "Your vote matters" is a load of hooey.

Two things matter.

Money matters, and if you don't have any, your vote may make you feel better, but it isn't influencing anything.

The electoral college matters, and it's a good bet you and I aren't part of it.

BTW - I'm patriotic, and I don't vote.

[Robert Meek]

Our votes would matter, a lot more...

...if we did not have the "Electoral College," which we do not need

...if our votes were one person/one vote, and it was the majority vote that counted

...and if we had not successfully been sold these notoriously unsecure "electronic" voting machines but still used ballots

[Sunny Fry]

Robert, I cheerfully disagree with you regarding the electoral college.

If you look at a map of any recent election, you're going to find that _geographically_ speaking, the nation is just plain old red. The "blue" is clustered in the northeast and Pacific coast, with one or two blobs in the middle.

If we had pure democracy -- one man, one vote nationally -- what we'd see is that a handful of highly urban areas would dictate the policy for the entire nation. If you lived in a state with a low density population, you probably needn't bother going to the polls.

Why does that matter? Because different areas of the nation have different interests in national elections. From trade to agriculture to immigration to social policy, things are just going to look different in, say, the agricultural, traditional, more homogenous midwest than they are in the highly urban and diverse New York.

So the electoral college gives a very, very slight boost to smaller, less populous states by counting all their representatives *and* their two senators.

And Bradlee, tell all those Obama supporters that going to the polls doesn't matter. It does. It just doesn't matter as much as it would in a local election -- but if it didn't matter, Acorn wouldn't be in the headlines.

Your vote has exactly as much influence as your citizenship -- one.

And I'm uncomfortable with electronic ballots that lack a paper trail, too.