Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Voting, Misunderstood

This year, fewer than 40% of voting age Americans will actually vote.
A serious glitch in self-marketing, I think.
If you don't vote because you're trying to teach politicians a lesson, you're tragically misguided in your strategy. The very politicians you're trying to send a message to don't want you to vote. Since 1960, voting turnouts in mid-term elections are down significantly, and there's one reason: because of TV advertising.
Political TV advertising is designed to do only one thing: suppress the turnout of the opponent's supporters. If the TV ads can turn you off enough not to vote ("they're all bums") then their strategy has succeeded.
The astonishing thing is that voters haven't figured this out. As the scumminess and nastiness of campaigning and governing has escalated and the flakiness of candidates appears to have escalated as well, we've largely abdicated the high ground and permitted selfish partisans on both sides to hijack the system.
Voting is free. It's fairly fast. It doesn't make you responsible for the outcome, but it sure has an impact on what we have to live with going forward. The only thing that would make it better is free snacks.
Even if you're disgusted, vote. Vote for your least unfavorite choice. But go vote.

11 comments:

  1. I don't even really know who's running, but if palin shows up in the top 2 then I might just vote the other way out of common knowledge.

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  2. Good post. You're totally right, not voting as some sort of protest is ridiculous and ineffectual. Go vote, but research the candidates. Make an educated vote, not a knee-jerk vote based on party.

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  3. It's of vital importance to understand how voting works. Some people can't go through that.

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  4. I went and voted, and I agree that the biggest shame is the general apathy

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  5. I can understand most people's apathy when it comes to voting. Pretty hard to get motivated when no matter who is voted in the opposing side still tries to bully their views for no reason other than being the loser.

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  6. I live in england and this was the first year I voted, I looked forward to it and I'm glad I had a chance.

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  7. I really like the message here... I've gotta admit I'm guilty of not voting this midterm election. I'll vote in 2 years, tho.

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  8. I vote in every election that comes around, but I can certainly understand the apathy. Most politicians (especially in the US) are all corporate shills within the same quadrant of the political spectrum. There's very few differences between them all.

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