Sunday, April 17, 2011

Why not voting doesn't send a message

Sometimes you hear people say that they choose not to vote in order to "send a message". But there's a problem with that strategy:

Suppose you're the most responsive politician in human history. There's an election, and, yay, you win! Then you notice that, say, 30% of the eligible voters didn't vote. Being the most responsive politician in human history, you're insightful enough to think that maybe they were trying to send you a message.

But what specific message were they trying to send you? What can you do to address their concerns?

You have no way of knowing, do you? For that matter, you have no way of knowing how many of them are trying to "send a message" as opposed to having moved out of the riding or died since the last enumeration or gotten hit by a bus on the way to the polling place.

The way to send a message to politicians is, quite literally, to send them a message. Email them about your specific concerns when they're campaigning, and again after they're elected. On top of this, you can sign (or start) petitions or otherwise engage in activism about your specific concerns, and work towards electoral reform if it addresses your concerns.

But choosing not to vote will achieve nothing. The only message is sends is "Meh, whatever you guys want is fine."

3 comments:

Hanna said...

I truly truly have no wish to see ANY of the leaders in power. So what do I do? Just vote for the least offensive of the seriously offensive?

impudent strumpet said...

Step by step instructions

laura k said...

Hanna, along with Imp Strump's instructions, there's another option. Think about the issues that matter to you, then choose the party that most lines up on the issues. The leaders matter, but the platform matters much more.

Imp Strump, very good post.