February 20th marks the beginning of early voting for the Texas 2018 primaries. Whenever something voting related inches closer on the calendar, I always feel the need to alert people about it. In my experience, having to alert people about voting isn’t enough, though. Generally, I also have to convince people to vote, too, since simply knowing about an upcoming election isn’t enough to rally people to go to the polls.
“Why isn’t voting sexy?” I asked Liam, my boyfriend, as we walked towards his apartment last weekend.
“Why do you have to convince people that voting is a worthwhile activity? Why do you have to sell voting? Why can’t people understand that the activity itself is good? What makes voting so unappealing?” I continued.
I asked these questions knowing some of the reasons why voting isn’t sexy–that is, why voting has to be sold to eligible voters.
You hear excuses for not voting all the time when an election comes around the corner. “My vote doesn’t count” or “I don’t know enough to be an educated voter” are generally very common excuses for not voting. “I don’t like any of the candidates” is another common one. I’ve even read papers where choosing to vote is considered a moral action, and some authors advise that people should not vote whenever they have perverse incentives for voting or simply do not know who to vote for. Jason Brennan’s The Ethics of Voting makes this particular point, and it’s worth a read if you are curious about that viewpoint.
I’ve also been reading a lot of Marx lately for a class, so possibly equating voting to a duty makes voting a daunting activity synonymous to work. After all, if you think work is demoralizing and voting is considered work, then why vote, right (shout-out to all the Marxists and communists reading this article)?
It seems that inaction by not voting excuses individuals of investing any time or moral action unnecessarily whenever an election occurs. On the face of it, these excuses are even valid.
Why vote when statistically your vote actually does not count–nevermind the fact there are instances of local elections when one vote sincerely makes the difference for a candidate. Also, nevermind the fact a single vote at one point did affect the outcome of the Virginia District 94 House election, and another vote could have also decided it. The picture below was taken when Yancey was behind by one vote, and after recounts and disputes about the counting of another vote, Yancey was tied with Simonds. A random drawing of names decided that election.
Why vote when you don’t know anything about the ballot–nevermind the fact that thanks to technology, there are more opportunities now for understanding a candidate’s platform more than ever. Also, nevermind the fact that if voters allowed skepticism to dictate their actions, then they would never be able to know enough about anything in order to operate in the world with complete certainty. Perhaps a better excuse would be “I have not developed a justifiable true belief about the candidates or policy proposals, yet.” However, even this excuse does not reasonably prevent an eligible voter from developing a belief.
Also, why vote when you don’t like the candidates–nevermind the fact that very few candidates and/ or policies, if any, can be described in terms of objectively “good” and “bad”. When dealing with evaluating governmental policies, traditionally, individuals describe people and policies in economic terms of “better” and worse”. For a majority of Americans, it is difficult to reasonably claim that in most elections, which candidate would better fit the preferences of a voter is impossible to discern.
Possible the best reasons for not voting are rooted in the philosophical arguments, but even those, I would contend, have considerations that they conveniently dismiss. (I would go into these more dismissals, but I’ll leave those for a different article.)
Being on a university campus filled with young people, I’m even more flabbergasted when voting has to be advertised to young people. According to a Pew Research Center study, young people between the ages 18 and 35 in 2016 made up roughly the same population percentage as baby boomers. Yet, young people did not have the same political clout, because they do not show up to the polls in the same numbers. Presidential elections always have the biggest turnouts, however even in the 2016 presidential election, the Census Bureau reveals that young people vote in significantly lower numbers, as much as 24.8% lower.
Young people has the potential to affect the vote just as much as any other voting block. However, voting organizations on the University of Texas at Austin campus must advertise voting as if it were a repulsive action in need of rebranding.
This particular time in America seems to justify voting more than ever. Given the Florida shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, many eligible voters are expressing anguish at the fact that this additional school shooting this year alone can yield significant gun reform if only legislators would enact them. If eligible voters were so concerned about legislators who enact legislation that they want enacted, then why not vote in legislators who would address issues that they are concerned about?
Even if Congress was plagued with special interest groups and lobbyists who obscure the public’s interests, it seems insane to continue to reward incumbents who yield no results for the constituents by continuing to allow those legislators to be voted into office. When the incumbent retention rate has on average been 93% since 1992 for House members seeking re-election, this problem becomes even more pertinent.
I still don’t know why voting isn’t sexy. Maybe it’s because it is dutiful; maybe it’s because it matters.