Go on, throw your vote away
andy on Nov 7th 2006
I know it’s a little late in the day, but here in the States it’s midterm election day. I think most polls are open until 7pm local time. So if you haven’t already gone and voted, you should seriously go do that right now.
Go on, I’ll wait.
… back already? Good.
One thing that I’m always frustrated about is the inability to find good, non-partisan information about the candidates. I found Project Smart Vote, which seems to be pretty good for the information it has. Unfortunately, I found that most of the candidates in my neck of the woods (Dallas, Texas area) didn’t respond to the questions. In the gubernatorial race, only one of the five candidates responded. It’s very hard to make a decision based on that.
How does everyone else find unbiased information about candidates? Surely no one votes a straight party ticket (although, scarily enough, that was an option on my ballot. Just check this one box to blindly follow the crowd!). In this day and age, you’d think such information would be easily available. After all, isn’t that the point of this here series of tubes called the internet? To quickly and easily disseminate information?
I attempted to read the websites for the gubernatorial candidates, but quickly lost my will to live. It was almost 100% spin, and pretty much no real content. I couldn’t easily surmise what their stance on anything was.
I would love to hear how other people solve this dilemma. Dart boards? Dice? Russian roulette?
In related news, I found that I voted for a disturbingly high number of Libertarian candidates. More than Democrats and even Republicans. Does that make me a bad person, or just a crazy person?
Filed in Politics | 6 responses so far
6 Responses to “Go on, throw your vote away”
Senioré Soosy Nov 7th 2006 at 08:06 pm 1
Every election I get frustrated by this as well. I didn’t know about Project Smart Vote. I’ll have to check it out.
spitgirl Nov 7th 2006 at 08:19 pm 2
Hrm… no clue. I did some investigation at midnight last night (an hour after my bedtime) and made a decision. And I biffed the vote two times… wait, three… I blame it on the computerized political call to my CELL PHONE at 6:30am.
Alfred E Nov 7th 2006 at 11:09 pm 3
Good grief. You really have no idea? You’re how old? (over 16?)
League of Women Voters
Anyone who doesn’t answer their questionaire in a contested race is a certified ass-hat.
rentzsch Nov 8th 2006 at 02:32 pm 4
Bad *and* crazy, of course
Jim Dec 7th 2006 at 11:09 pm 5
Voting the party line is usually better than not voting the party line.
I hate being contrarian but…
Ever talk to a Democrat? They’re always deliberating based upon the candidates nuances. Ever talk to a Republican? They vote Republican.
Accordingly, notwithstanding the “throw the bums out” in congress this year, which was more tied to Republican failure than Democrat accomplishment, our system favors the interest groups that support the Republican party instead of the interest groups that support the Democratic party because of Republican solidarity.
So, we have a collective action problem. If every individual in society voted for the candidate they thought was best based on personal merit, we may have a more representative government of higher caliber leaders.
As it stands, the party that more blindly votes is the party that wins. It’s a team sport that requires solidarity. Rather than voting based on idealism, it’s more beneficial to vote pragmatically.
The exception is the “vote of no confidence” of voting for a third party. By voting libertarian, it adds to a statistic that jolts the republicans into pursuing potential constituents with a platform of small government. By voting green, it perks the democrats to do something about the environment to get the votes.
It aint perfect, and you’ll never get all that you want out of government. Maybe if we had proportional representation things would be different, and the qualities of the candidates would matter more. As the system stands, the most efficient way to have one’s political ideas translated into policy is to vote based on party platforms instead of candidates.
Mike Sep 12th 2007 at 06:26 am 6
Well, hopefully, in next year’s election, we can all be happy with whom we vote for! I hear ya about voting more Libertarian. They really seem make sense these days.