The value of voting (clarification)

Yesterday on NPR I heard some of a call-in type show (World Have Your Say) discussing voting, whether it should be mandatory, how turn-out can be improved, etc. I was astonished to hear one caller say, "I don't think I am going to vote, because neither of these candidates have earned my vote. I don't think either of deserve my vote." More astonishing, no one bothered to retort, "Young man, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the voting process."

I understand what he meant---our options represent opposite ends of a spectrum, and many of us fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. If neither of the choices represent us, why support either one of them?

This idea equates voting with consumerism, that by not purchasing a product, you aren't supporting the company that produced it. Imagine there are two brands of ice cream at your local grocery store: If you want to protest one ice cream company's treatment of local farmers, and the other's treatment of their bovine stock, you can opt not to buy, and that might send a message to the producers. It might lead to the store not carrying one or both brands because they aren't selling.

But if that grocery store was like our election process, one of the ice creams is going to remain in the store, the other is not. Period. One candidate wins, one loses. So saying "neither of them has earned my vote" isn't sending a message, it is abdicating your leadership decisions to other people who feel that one candidate has earned their vote, people more passionate (read: radical) than you. Taken to ridiculous extremes, if 98% of the nation opts to not vote because they didn't like the choices, then 2% of the nation will elect our leader. (I feel like I'm stating the very obvious here, and for those who agree, I apologize. But apparently, this isn't obvious to everyone.)

There is no "none of the above" option on the ticket---you vote for one of the candidates, or you sit out and let others elect the President. Even if you think they're both evil, you need to figure out who you think is the lesser of two evils and vote for them so that the greater of two evils isn't victorious. When they tally up the votes on election night, no one attempts to differentiate between those who didn't vote because they feel no candidate earned their vote and those who were too lazy to figure out where to vote in their precinct.

I hear intelligent people say that they don't vote because their vote doesn't matter. But by not voting, these people are ensuring that their vote doesn't matter, so the system that they complain "doesn't work" works even less as a result. The obviousness of this irony is hard to miss. Yet some seem to miss it.

So please remember, on November 4: You can't make a statement by saying nothing.