We live in a world where access to information and technology is considered a privilege. Today is Super Tuesday, in which ten states hold primaries, two hold caucuses, and one territory holds a nominating contest. It is ridiculously important, as it brings us several steps closer to knowing who the official nominees for the 45th President of the United States will be. I am lucky to be surrounded by people who care just as much about their futures as I do; however, I have seen some troubling sentiments being thrown around on the interwebs. Some people are choosing not to vote.
There are a few reasons for which a person might not vote; maybe they don’t like any of the candidates. Perhaps they feel like their vote won’t make a difference. Most astonishingly, though, are those who proudly proclaim that they don’t follow politics, or they don’t feel informed. Before I dive into my controlled fit of rage, here are a few disclaimers: I am not referring to people who are literally unable to vote, due to stringent voter ID laws, disability, or illness. I am certainly not referring to those who do not have access to education or information or news. People who cannot vote for these reasons are victims of systemic racism, classism and ableism, all of which must be addressed (by legislators, for whom people can vote in elections!). I am addressing people who post about their apparent ignorance on the internet because they have the greatest, biggest resource available at their fingertips; but instead of using it to learn about candidates, issues, the political system, and other important things on which people’s lives literally depend, they use it to tell people that they will not be casting a vote today because they “not informed enough.”
Have you ever heard of John Lewis? To some, he’s that guy who endorsed Hillary Clinton and called Bernie Sanders a liar and a scammer because he never went to any civil rights protests (which is, by the way, not at all what he did, so please relax). If you ever took an American history course, you would also know that he grew up in a severely segregated Alabama in the 1950s and 60s, the son of sharecroppers who all bore the brunt of Jim Crow laws. In the 1960s, he organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Nashville and participated in Freedom Rides. From 1963 to 1966, he was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He’s been beaten and abused and arrested more than 40 times for his nonviolent protests against segregation; a big part of this was advocacy for voting rights for black people, who were (and still are) kept from the polls both by action and by law. My point in running through this short profile is some people have had to risk their lives fighting tooth and nail for their right to vote, the right that white people and our ancestors have had for much longer (and benefit from a system that is guilty of depriving people of color of this right). For us it was never called into question, so many of us take it for granted. Shame on us.
You might not like politics, but that does not make you special or exempt from performing your civic duty. If you’re connected to the internet, it is your responsibility to inform and educate yourself on the state of the country and the world. If you can get to a polling place, or vote absentee, it is your responsibility to use this knowledge with which you have armed yourself to pick the candidate whom you believe is most qualified for the job. There’s a great thing called Google, which you can use to find out candidates’ platforms. Since you don’t seem to want to take it upon yourself to find them, check out this website where you can find information on anything and everything you want to know. Perhaps you don’t want to know; that’s just too bad, because you should want to know, because all of these issues affect everyone in some way, including you, because again, you are not exempt from the effects of the political process just because you don’t feel like getting involved.
This is the basic component of the democracy in which we live: participation. It is easy to look at the state of American politics and call it an undemocratic oligarchy, especially when you think about the mess that is the electoral college. But you know what else is easy, when it is well within your means to do so? Voting! Voting is not meaningless, and every vote counts. When a hundred or even a thousand people sit back and decide not to vote, that makes a difference. It’s kind of like game theory. We are all given the opportunity to make a decision. When we all vote, regardless of what our votes are, the outcome is the most accurate reflection of public opinion, and thus the fairest result. When only half of us vote, the results can be skewed, with some feeling the satisfaction of playing a bigger part in their chosen candidate’s election, and others suffering defeat that could have otherwise been avoided, had everyone else voted. When no one votes, it’s a huge disaster that turns into anyone’s game. While the internet and other channels of communication have made it virtually impossible to make a political decision in isolation from other people, it is still up to each individual to make a choice regardless.
You might not like being made to feel ashamed for choosing not to vote in this manner and I am here to say, from the bottom of my heart, that I feel no sympathy. If you choose not to vote when you are perfectly capable of doing the work that goes into making an informed decision, then a Trump presidency is on you, and you’re not allowed to complain about it.
Hannah Lee. 