By:
The Dude on the Right
I voted today.
That shouldn’t seem that strange, but for the longest time, up
until about five or ten years ago, I didn’t vote, pretty much with the attitude
of "What’s the point?" You see, I live in Illinois, and for the most part,
especially in national elections, the outcome is set long before I cast my vote
with the state being hugely on the Democrat side, or at least so because of
Chicago. I voted when I was younger, when I could for the first time in
high school because it just seemed so "adult," and I think I voted a couple of
times when I was in college because the voting place was across the street, but
then it just seemed like a pain in the butt to go somewhere on a Tuesday that I
never visit when I had better things to do. And also, for Presidential
elections, in Illinois, and with the dumb-ass electoral college process we have,
most of the time it just seemed like as much as my vote might count for the
"democrat" guy, if I voted for the "republican" guy, it really didn’t matter
because "21" votes, none of which were mine, were going for one candidate, the
democrat. And fine those of you who are in states with only a few
electoral votes might like this process because then a candidate has to visit
you for a couple of electoral college votes, but really, in this day and age of
computers, and the ability to instantly count every vote, is it really fair, if
I’m a John McCain supporter (and I’ll admit that I’m not), to even vote in a
state like Illinois, knowing that my vote is useless because even if Illinois
had a 60% Obama, 38% McCain, and 2% for the other folks on the ballot split, the
electoral votes aren’t split by the percentage, like maybe it should be, meaning
Barack would get 12ish votes, John getting nearly 8 votes, and 1 vote spread
across the people who when you went to vote, looked at the ballot, and saw
peoples names you had never seen before who were running for President, well, it
doesn’t matter because no matter the percentage split, Obama will get 21 "votes"
from Illinois to become President of The United States.
Yes, there are the
battleground states they always talk about, like Pennsylvania, Ohio, or Florida,
where the race is tight, and your vote sort of counts, but even then, it’s all
or nothing, which, now, in the 2000’s, seems just plain stupid. Polls are
taken everyday, by some very reputable poll takers, but in the end it doesn’t
matter who is getting the most votes, all that really matters is who "wins" what
state.
And that just is wrong.
What should be is who actually wins, by
people, who vote. It is 2008. I would like to think that we have
finally learned how to count, up to at least 150 million.
The polls are
closing, the news channels are working to make their mark as the first to
"project" the winner, but in the end, in your state, the only place your vote
really counts is in your local election, where Jim Shoe will beat Jane
Ishlacosky, because you voted. Individual votes are what hopefully matter, and not some old process of “winner takes it all.”
See, your vote does count, in the way it
should, but sadly, not always for our President.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!