Your vote: How much does it matter?
Saturday, September 3, 2011 at 2:55PM The year is 2012. Well, not yet. But it soon will be, in a matter of a few short months. During that year, the various and diverse peoples of the United States will be treated to a veritable media onslaught of politicians pandering, news-media pundits spinning, and election campaign committees organizing, all in the hope that, in November of Aught Twelve, you, the good ol' Amurrican voter, will go to the polls and vote for them.
I want YOU (to vote even though we're going to just elect who we want to anyways.)Because whether they're right-wing or left-wing, Republican or Democrat, they want your vote.
Voting is, so it has been understood in the United States of America for more than two centuries, the legitimate path to the effecting of change. That's what many of us have been told, probably our entire lives. Don't like the way the country is being run? Vote out the current leadership, and vote in different leaders, who will do things differently. Have you ever been told such a thing? I'm almost willing to bet my last nickel that you have.
Yet let us examine the reality of voting. Yes, let us examine how much a vote really means in this country's national elections. I thank you for your patience.
The first question submitted for your consideration here is, "Does your vote elect Presidents and Vice-Presidents?". The answer to this question is "No".
You see, one of the peculiarities of our country's particular brand of Democracy is that the architects of the Constitution did not quite all agree as to how the President and Vice-President should be elected. Some thought that the President and Vice-President should be elected by a popular vote, which is to say, every citizen in the country could go to the polls and cast their ballot, and the candidate with the most votes would be elected. Others feared that a popular vote for President would turn the election process into a popularity contest, and they wanted Congress to elect the President and Vice-President instead. Those gentlemen couldn't agree on this issue, so they wrote a compromise into the Constitution instead, wherein the President and Vice-President would be elected by special Electors, who themselves would be elected by the citizens of this country. The process by which this is done is known as the "Electoral College", and it is the Electoral College, and not your vote or my vote, which actually elects Presidents and Vice-Presidents.
But if the popular vote only really serves to elect the electors, and does not, after all, actually elect the President and Vice-President of the United States, that begs the question, "Where does OUR say actually lay?". The answer to this question is, "You get to choose the electors".
But wait! Who ARE the electors? Are they not human beings, just like you and I? Indeed, they are. But if the Electoral College system was implemented in order to keep the election of Presidents and Vice-Presidents from becoming a mere popularity contest, then why make the electors humans? Is it not still a popularity contest, after all, when, instead of 200 million people casting their votes, it is only a relatively small handful of electors casting their votes? Does it really make much of a difference if it's 51 people in a room voting for President as opposed to 200 million voting for President? Are human beings, with all their capacity for flawed judgment and lack of complete data, not the ones still making the decision as to whom it is that gets elected?
Proponents of the current Electoral process might make the claim, even with some modicum of justice, that the Electors who do the job of electing the officials of this great Homeland are professionals who have spent years and years being educated in political realities and who can be counted upon to make informed and wise decisions in the fulfillment of their duties. It is truth that the collective will of the majority does not always represent the course of wisdom. Yet, at the same time, when hundreds of millions of people invest in, say, 51 people, the power to speak for them, what assurance do those hundreds of millions have that those 51 people actually will speak for them?
It should be stated here that, in most cases, the votes of the Electoral College have actually reflected the popular vote. But there have occurred throughout the history of the United States a few notable exceptions to this practice. Consider, if you will:
- In the 1824 Presidential Election, Andrew Jackson maintained a lead of as many as 38,149 votes in the Popular Vote. In the Electoral College, he had 99 votes to his opponent, John Quincy Adams' 84 votes. Yet, when 4th place contender Henry Clay was knocked out of the race, John Quincy Adams quickly moved to secure his endorsement. (Some allege that Adams offered Henry Clay a high-ranking position in his Cabinet if he were to win.) Whatever the conversations between Adams and Clay, Clay decided to go to bat for Adams. Adams took the election, becoming the 6th President, despite the fact that Andrew Jackson won the Popular Vote.
- In the 1876 Presidential Election, Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden won the Popular Vote by a margin of 3 percent. The race in the Electoral College was pretty much neck-and-neck, and eventually, a 15 person commission was set up by both parties to break the tie. Originally, the intent was to have 7 Democrats, 7 Republicans, and one "impartial" Independent candidate on the commission to determine who won the Election. However, the Independent was elected a Senator, and thus had to resign from the Commission. He was replaced on the Commission by a Republican (a member of Rutheford B. Hayes' party, making it 8 Republicans vs. 7 Democrats on the Commission). The Commissioners voted along party lines, and Rutheford B. Hayes was elected President, despite the fact that Tilden won the Popular Vote.
- In the 2000 Presidential Election, former Democratic Vice-President Al Gore won the Popular Vote, while Republican George W. Bush won the Electoral Vote. The race came down to the six million voters in the State of Florida, Governed by (surprise surprise), George W. Bush's brother, Jeb Bush. The highly-disputed result of the contest was subject to a recount of votes. Possibly valid allegations of voter-fraud and voter-disenfranchisement aside, the case went to the Supreme Court, which was (and is) packed with Republicans. The Supreme Court ruled that the recounts should stop, and the Supreme Court decision awarded the Presidency to George W. Bush.
The preceeding are but a few examples of occasions where the collective will of the United States Electorate, that is to say, you and me and all your neighbors and all my neighbors voting at the polls, didn't mean a whole lot, and certainly did not mean enough to elect a President and Vice-President. In all these cases, the process of electing the President came down to the private opinions of men with their own viewpoints, their own ideas, their own agendas. And in the world of politics, it is probably a safe bet to say that their agendas do not reflect your own. After all, they are not the ones working the fryer at McDonalds. They are not the ones stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart. They are not the ones struggling to make a living while lacking some of the most vital necessities of life, like affordable healthcare.
Change, on a national level, is effected by the legislators of this country, in whichever way they see fit. You do not write the laws. The Legislative Branch of the U.S. Government writes the laws.
So the next time that you go to the polls, it is recommended that you keep these things in mind, when you consider how much your vote really matters. No matter who you vote for, what matters most is who the Electors vote for. It would be understandable if you boycotted the National Elections entirely, since your vote does not really matter, but if you insist on voting (as many continue to vote out of a sense of patriotic duty, which is certainly admirable, if not particularly effective), then why not at least take the opportunity to make a statement with it, if you can accomplish nothing else with your vote?
This coming Presidential Election, why not write in "No One" on the ballot, and vote for "No One"? It's not like your vote is really going to matter anyway. And at least then, you can make the statement that you find none of the choices presented to you to be worth voting for.
Thanks for reading. And a happy election season to you all.
Reader Comments (10)
Excellent article. However, if you write in "No one" would that spoil your ballot, making the rest of your votes including for state and local positions uncounted.
Hmmm....interesting point, Isaac. What would you suggest as an alternative method of protest?
I'm voting for Jeff Lebowski...
ABIDE!
Heh. Now THERE'S an idea. I think I too shall vote for The Dude. Or maybe, just maybe, I'll vote for Yoda. :p
I like it... except Yoda isn't a natural born Americant... kinda like voting for Schwarzenegger or the Dalai Lama... Lord Vader might actually rock though, and he's humanoid enough that his paperwork could likely be doctored... and who is more Americant sounding than James Earl Jones? :D
Heh. And if people don't vote for him, he could always choke 'em out and be like "I find your lack of faith disturbing." :p
At this point, I'm planning on leaving the vote for president blank. You also can't write a name in for president in every state. I suspect that whether your whole ballot will be spoiled or not is highly subjective according to who is running your voting district, another problem with our electoral system.
There's another idea, Isaac. But aren't they likely to throw away the entire ballot if it is not fully filled out?
No, I am almost certain it is illegal to spoil a ballot based off leaving areas blank. Leaving portions of the ballot blank is called ballot runoff, and it's very common. However, most people only vote for the big name national elections and skip voting for positions such as Public Utilities Commissioner.
Maybe that's a problem that needs to be addressed in the electorate. People do not involve themselves in the life of the state, and consequentially, they delegate their own authority to other people to take care of. That seems to be a huge error in judgment on the part of a large portion of the electorate...