By Carl Weinschenk
Hello. I hope you all are well.
This letter is aimed at explaining why voting matters. Let’s start with an acknowledgement that there are a lot of reasons not to vote. It chews up a lot of time–most of a day in some cases–and in general is a pain in the neck. It’s difficult for seniors or those with disabilities or illnesses. And it seems like a bit of Kabuki theatre. After all, your participation really doesn’t make a difference. A candidate won’t win or lose because of a single vote (though it has happened, so never say never). Voting may simply be something that you don’t do. Many people don’t go to the gym or hit the salad bar, though they know both are good for them.
Moreover, we’ve added to the traditional reasons for not voting during the past few years. There is a threat of intimidation at the polls and the chilling effect of restrictive rules that could lead to confrontations about eligibility. There is added fear if you’re an immigrant or first generation American. The nightmare is that showing up at the polls would unleash unknown horrors and you may end up on a plane to some country in which you’ve never set foot. Sounds outlandish–but outlandish things are happening.
Perhaps it’s the general bad vibes and cynicism that have taken root during the past decade.
I get it. Though I run a website aimed at encouraging sporadic and nonvoting folks to come to the polls, I’m chill, not a proselytizer. Everyone has a right to not vote, just as they have a right to vote. My hope is that a well-reasoned argument will more effectively convey why voting matters and why people should vote than an inevitably insulting and tiresome rant.
Why people should vote: We’re not in great shape, folks
We were founded by intelligent, creative and (for the time) idealistic revolutionaries. They set up a system full of fail safes, Peters watching Pauls and other prescient strategies that have held up remarkably well.
But things change. The system they dreamed up in Philadelphia in 1787 is facing serious challenges. Among them:
≈ The system, as elegant as it is, is run by humans (until AI takes over, at least). Humans, if you haven’t noticed, are unreliable, contrary, ornery and selfish. We have the collective memory of goldfish.
≈ Technology has exploded. AI did not happen in a vacuum. It is just the dramatic endpoint of ongoing evolution that is as old as mankind itself. In fact, technical creative is one of the definitions of humanity. During the past few decades the increasing personalization of technology has created a populace that is atomized and disconnected. Everybody has their own channel, so to speak. That makes shared values and even civil discourse more difficult.
≈ We are bad voters. We’ve had a good thing going for so long and may be lazy. Perhaps American political campaigns are so endless that not voting is a subtle and perhaps unconscious push back against the tedium. Cuts to education likely have led to apathy and political disengagement by a significant segment of the public.
Whatever the reason, our record is not good. Ballotpedia says that about 46% of eligible voters participated in the elections of 2022 and about 64% in the election of 2024. (The latter was a presidential year, so a higher percentage voted.) That means about 54% and 36% did not vote, respectively.
Why voting matters: Big issues are on the table
The context above suggests that we are losing control and need to reassert ourselves. More specifically, decisions on many topics – AI, climate change, relations with Israel, Russia, Ukraine and others, war as politics, the rule of law, the social safety net – can be categorized as existential. They all are on the table. Decisions made during the next two years will be very hard or impossible to reverse. Do we really want them made by the gang running things now? The opposition party holding the House of Representatives and/or the Senate will have real input into those decisions and, if necessary, keep them from being made.
The Democrats taking control of one or both branches of government will have a related but sometimes overlooked impact. Congress has the right to investigate the executive branch. Of course, that right only will be exercised if the Democrats win one or both of the houses. Part of investigating Trump directly is examining the system’s vulnerabilities and how he managed to game the system. One example is whether the current structure of the Supreme Court is a imperfect and must be tweaked. That alone is a reason why people should vote.
We are at a point now that it can’t yet be said for certain that the Titanic of our republic will hit or squeeze by the iceberg, even if the anti-Trump side wins one or both chambers. However, if we lose both it is a certainty that the situation will be far more dire. I don’t want to wake up on November 4 facing a two year period in which the current administration has even less reason to follow the law and do what is in our nation’s best interest. Clearly, it’s a key reason why voting matters.
After Watergate, laws were put in place in an effort to keep the same abuses from recurring. That doesn’t mean that other crimes couldn’t be committed, of course. In other words, democracy is as much whack-a-mole as it is eloquent statesmanship. We are at a point at which we have more moles to whack than in our history.
There is a process in cybersecurity called penetration testing. An expert hacker is paid to attack an organization’s security. If he or she succeeds, the organization knows what needs fixing. If the tester fails, the organization knows it’s in good shape. The Trump regime certainly is playing this role for our government.
At the end of the day, we are a community. In the past, a high proportion of us have stepped up in an hour of need. It may be that the stakes are not as obvious as the Civil War or World War II. This is akin to a slide into quicksand: It’s over before you realize you’re in trouble.
Thanks for reading. This, hopefully, gave you more insight into why voting matters than an unhinged all-cap screed would have.
Take care and be well.
Carl