Why I Never Ask People to Vote


This Tuesday, November 6th, is Election Day.  Oddly, I am not going to ask you to vote.  [More on that later.]

Voting patterns are interesting; some are predictable, others present a mystery.  For example, why do Minnesotans vote more than anyone else in the country?  Why are Texas and West Virginia, two states with nothing in common in size, geography or demographics, at the bottom of that list of voters?  If you are female, older, and well educated you are more likely to vote.  Eighteen to 29-year-olds are the least engaged—strange for people who are sure they know it all. 

In the last election 2 million (!!!) minority voters who had voted for Obama twice did not bother to go to the polls for Clinton.  Obama won Michigan in 2012 by 350,000 votes, Clinton lost by roughly 10,000. In Detroit and Wayne Counties more than 75,000 Motown Obama voters simply stayed at home. If even 2% of those who stayed home had voted for Clinton, Michigan would have stayed blue.  If, in North Carolina, blacks had turned out for Clinton as they had for Obama, she would have won the state.  In Wisconsin Trump received exactly the same number of votes as Romney did in 2012.  But Clinton got 230,000 votes less than Obama did. She lost by 30,000 votes.  Romney lost Wisconsin but Trump won the state because the voters who voted for a Black man twice would not vote for a white woman once.  If you want to talk about racism and sexism, chew on that one.  All she needed was just 8% of the vote that showed up for Obama.

If Clinton wins Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina she wins the election.  And this off-year election would have an entirely different slant, feel and purpose. 

If I had my way every eligible citizen would be given a free picture ID, and a valid address which they would use to vote.  I would set up voter registration kiosks at every grocery store in the state to make it as convenient as possible.  I want everyone who is eligible to vote to do so.  I am ready to make it as easy as protection of the integrity of the process allows.   But, it is time to stop cajoling people to get to the polls.  Why won’t I beg you to vote?  Because I shouldn’t have to.  Voting is a privilege worth a little discomfort, a little trouble, a rearrangement of your day. 

I have registered to vote when I had to walk several blocks to get to City Hall.  I have hauled my girls in a wagon behind me to get to the polls.  I have stood in freezing lines covered in sleet to vote.  I have set my alarm for 4:30 a.m. to vote before work.  If you are too lazy, too ignorant, too self-absorbed to haul your sorry behind to the polls I am neither going to beg for your participation or regret your absence.  If you want an adult franchise, act like an adult. 

Reminding an adult to vote is like reminding them to wash their hands after using the toilet.  If you have to ask, you’ve already lost the battle. 

             I voted, because I keep the faith.  

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