Vote Dammit!
Jun. 21st, 2004 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqThe federal election is in one week and I want to urge everyone to vote. That won't happen of course, only half of you will actually get up off your ass and do the only thing that is expected of you in a democracy that is not currently at war with anyone.
I've never understood the idea of not voting. It is an alien concept to me. Elections have been won or lost on the basis of a single vote. Hell, if the turnout in the US presidential election last 2000 was even slightly higher, in just a few districts of one state (Florida), we'd all be bitching about President Gore right now.
Think your vote doesn't count? Alberta elections are always won by the right-of-Attila-the-hun party? Maybe so, but your vote still counts. When computers give pollsters up to the minute details of every district of every riding, your vote counts. The government will respond to even the slightest change in the political wind. Are there 5% more left-wing votes in Midnapore this election. Better give them a hospital to keep the 5% from turning into 15%. Believe me, the Rod Loves of this world pay attention.
Lets pretend it doesn't matter. That your lone vote is completely and utterly useless. It is still your duty to vote. People died so that you could vote. There are people in this world dying right now to be able to vote in their own country. To throw your rights away for something so simple as "I don't feel like it" or "I don't have time to vote" is a sin to the efforts of those good people.
Anyone who tells me they don't have time can go to hell - it is the law of this land that your employer has to give you time off to vote. Polling stations are in ever neighborhood in this city. If you're not near a polling station the government will bend over backwards to get to you. Every soldier overseas can vote, and if they don't get a higher turnout than is normal I would be very surprised. My father can't get from his hospital bed to a wheelchair without two people helping him and he's going to vote.
Wondering who to vote for. Well you could vote for the same guys I'm voting for. I'd appreciate it, but I don't really expect it. If you're not willing to do the research then pick an issue important to you and find out what the various parties views on that one subject are. I know a girl who wasn't going to vote. We asked her if there was one issue she would vote for. There was, same-sex marriages. So we told her who was for it and who was against it. She now has every reason to vote. I hope that she does.
If you don't like your choices (as was the case for me with Alberta's bogus senate election a few years ago) void your ballot. It's the next best thing to saying fuck you.
I've never understood the idea of not voting. It is an alien concept to me. Elections have been won or lost on the basis of a single vote. Hell, if the turnout in the US presidential election last 2000 was even slightly higher, in just a few districts of one state (Florida), we'd all be bitching about President Gore right now.
Think your vote doesn't count? Alberta elections are always won by the right-of-Attila-the-hun party? Maybe so, but your vote still counts. When computers give pollsters up to the minute details of every district of every riding, your vote counts. The government will respond to even the slightest change in the political wind. Are there 5% more left-wing votes in Midnapore this election. Better give them a hospital to keep the 5% from turning into 15%. Believe me, the Rod Loves of this world pay attention.
Lets pretend it doesn't matter. That your lone vote is completely and utterly useless. It is still your duty to vote. People died so that you could vote. There are people in this world dying right now to be able to vote in their own country. To throw your rights away for something so simple as "I don't feel like it" or "I don't have time to vote" is a sin to the efforts of those good people.
Anyone who tells me they don't have time can go to hell - it is the law of this land that your employer has to give you time off to vote. Polling stations are in ever neighborhood in this city. If you're not near a polling station the government will bend over backwards to get to you. Every soldier overseas can vote, and if they don't get a higher turnout than is normal I would be very surprised. My father can't get from his hospital bed to a wheelchair without two people helping him and he's going to vote.
Wondering who to vote for. Well you could vote for the same guys I'm voting for. I'd appreciate it, but I don't really expect it. If you're not willing to do the research then pick an issue important to you and find out what the various parties views on that one subject are. I know a girl who wasn't going to vote. We asked her if there was one issue she would vote for. There was, same-sex marriages. So we told her who was for it and who was against it. She now has every reason to vote. I hope that she does.
If you don't like your choices (as was the case for me with Alberta's bogus senate election a few years ago) void your ballot. It's the next best thing to saying fuck you.
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-21 02:36 pm (UTC)"*I* sure as hell didn't vote for *them*!"
Of course if the party I vote for *does* get in then, well, I'd best learn to skate before I die as I'll likely be toodling around on the ice in the afterlife down below.
Hell Yes!
Date: 2004-06-21 06:06 pm (UTC)end rant...