Another primary election day is upon us and I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for voting. There are many candidates for Governor of California and most of them I have never heard of. There are a handful of propositions that don’t seem very important to me, and the various candidates for Insurance Commissioner and other offices all sound the same (at least all the Democrats sound the same and all the Republicans sound the same and the other parties don’t sound much different). It is really tempting to not bother voting.
I especially feel this way living in my neighborhood because we can’t even go to a polling place and cast our votes as there is some law that says that “…88 days prior to the election there must be 250 registered voters in a precinct…” for us to have a polling place. If there are not 88 registered voters, we must vote by mail. I understand that they don’t even bother to count our votes until after the winners have already been determined. I am not sure what they would do if the mailed votes changed the outcome…probably nothing.
Also, I find it hard to believe that an HOA of several hundred properties doesn’t have more than 88 registered voters. I think they just found it is cheaper to have us vote by mail than to set up a voting place.
Still, if I don’t vote then I am throwing away my opportunity to have a say in the outcome. During the 2016 Presidential Election I knew a lot of people who supported Bernie Sanders and felt he was cheated by the Democratic Party (which may be true). Those people refused to vote for the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, on general principles. They either decided to write in Bernie, not vote, or cast their vote for another party’s candidate (someone who had no chance of winning). I remember being angry and telling my cousin that throwing away his vote was going to make Trump president and it would all be his fault. Never mind that Trump never had a chance of carrying California, it just rankled me.
I love living in California, and I am proud that, for the most part, we are a progressive and independent state. The down side is that our votes don’t offset the votes from other states that are not as progressive. That may be some of the general discontent with the Electoral College. Back in the days when it could take weeks to gather all the votes and count them, it was necessary to have a system that didn’t require tallying each individual vote. But, now that we could actually make these decisions based on a count of the popular vote (majority rules) the old way of doing things is too deeply ingrained to change.
Anyway, I have reviewed all the documents from the Registrar of Voters Office, I have marked my ballot, I have dropped it off at the County Offices, and will wait for Election Day to see what it all meant.
I do believe that, in a Democracy, the majority of the voters should determine the outcome of the elections, but about 90 million eligible voters did not vote in the 2016 Presidential Election (something like 40% of the people who could vote). Some of that was because of the suppression of voters by political parties, some was because it was inconvenient to vote, some was because they just don’t care about voting.
A couple of years ago I met a man from Australia who told me that Australian voters are fined if they don’t vote. I don’t think you are required to register, but if you are registered you are fined if you don’t vote in state and national elections (although this does not apply to local elections). The fine is not huge, maybe the equivalent of $50, but it is enough to encourage people to get out and vote and the numbers indicate that between 80% and 90% of eligible voters do make it to the polls.
I had to give some thought to how I felt about mandatory voting. On one hand, it would make a huge difference in our elections and might mean more people’s actual preferences are accommodated, but, on the other hand, in a “Free Country” should you be required to do something if you don’t want to do?
Overall, I guess I just want to encourage you to vote, even those of you who will be cancelling out my vote at the polls. I can live with an election that doesn’t agree with me, but I’d like to feel that the results are what most people want.
So, long story short; Please Vote!
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