Sunday, November 02, 2008

Vote, It's Important

By now many of us have read and or heard various individuals implore us to vote on election day.

Well, I'm going to toss out my two cents worth.

Probably the most common excuse for not voting is "my vote doesn't count".

Well, that is not true. Let's break the election into two categories: Presidential election and all others.

Most people's daily lives are affected by the "all others", from city council, to mayor, to state reps, to governor, to US reps. Everybody's vote counts. Many times, these elections have less than 50% of the registered voters turning out. Do the numbers. Every vote counts. We have all seen local elections decided by just a handful of voters.

Now let's go to the Presidential election. I have heard many folks say that their vote doesn't count, especially because of the electoral college. Let's look at that closer. Usually, the candidate that gets the most votes in a state gets the elctoral votes for that state. Look at Florida a few years ago. Less than 600 votes decided the outcome. Now is it possible for a candidate to get more popular votes and lose because of the electoral college? It is possible. Let's just use two states as an example. Florida and Wyoming. One candidate can get Flroida's electoral votes by winning the state by less than 600. His opponent could be super victorious in Wyoming (maybe by thousands) and get far fewer electoral votes. And that could happen across the board. The "winner" being victorious in large electoral states by minuscule magins, and the "loser" trouncing in small electoral states. Is this realistic?

It still boils down to the fact that every vote really does count.

We've all read and seen various items along the same theme: "Freedom isn't free.....all gave some, some gave all" Freedom is not free and one of our legacies of freedom is the right to vote. Don't throw that right away.