How All This Works
Wherein Our
Heroine Holds Her Nose And Reviews Voting.
Occasionally, I hear some disaffected
type say something like, "I'm going to use my vote to send a message." It
sounds terribly jaded, doesn't it? Can't you just feel the world-weary sigh
gusting past your ear? The problem is, it's also abysmally stupid. It's sort
of like saying, "I'm going to use that hammer to apply my mascara." It's your
prerogative, but it isn't the right use for the tool and it isn't going to do
you an iota of good.
Last time
I checked, nobody was wringing their hands over the write-in votes for Mickey
Mouse. Similarly, that "message" Ralph Nader sent to Washington a few years
ago? That would be: there are more than a few people who are willing to treat a
Constitutional right like it's a bit of funky performance art.
A vote is an expression of
preference, generally a binary one. Another bit of lunacy applied to voting is,
"I don't like either party so I'm going to vote for [fill in something useless
here]." This reminds me greatly of a child offered chocolate or vanilla ice
cream who demands
strawberry.
"We don't have
strawberry," Reasonable Adult
responds.
"WANT strawberry!"
Many tears and tantrums later, still no strawberry. Wanting it isn't going to
make it appear. You can vote for Donald Duck in every local, state and federal
election. He's still not going to be your
representative.
The main
problem with using a vote to send a message is this: you are liable to be
misinterpreted. Voters for Nader may have been saying, "I think the political
system stinks." They may have been saying, "Both major party options are
nauseous." They may even have wanted Ralph Nader to be president. Stranger
things have happened. Only the last option is what the system is
for,
though. And when you have more than a few options as to how to interpret
something, people are likely to do one of two things: assume it's the most
likely one, or pick the one that suits their purposes best. If you don't like
the current choices for President and you don't agree with their policies or
ways of thinking, it's highly likely that they will take your ambiguous
"message" and infer something you find abhorrent.
At the end of the day, there
are really only two major messages politicians get out of votes: either "I won"
or "I lost." Anything else is just noise.
Posted: Wednesday - May 26, 2004 at 07:39 AM
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