Stop Telling Me Your Vote Doesn’t Matter
A handful of everyday citizens will change the course of history.
Last year, my city hosted a district school board election where the winning candidate won by a total of 38 votes.
This is not a candidate I am thrilled to have sitting on my daughter’s school board. That said, that’s democracy.
Regardless of my personal feelings, 38 people in that particular district chose to elect a candidate who gave school board campaign speeches to rooms filled with maybe 15 people while standing in front of cardboard cutouts of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
Again — I’m not thrilled, but I’ll be damned if I resort to conspiracy theories and whining to justify my inability to grasp reality like one of the cardboard cutouts above.
This school board election is what you would call an off-cycle election. Not only did it happen in an odd year, but the election happened in September.
I could get into all the reasons why that is, but that’s a topic for another day. The reality is that off-cycle elections draw lower voter turnouts because people aren’t paying attention as much.
There were 8,570 registered voters in this district. However, only 992 people showed up to vote, an 11.6% turnout.
7,578 registered voters either didn’t know about the election or simply didn’t care, leaving 38 of my neighbors to elect a woman who travels with a cardboard cutout of a convicted felon to sit on our local school board.
But again, that’s democracy. Your candidate isn’t always going to win, but that doesn’t give you the right to stop giving a damn.
I love local politics.
Okay, love may be a strong word, but I’m fascinated by them. I sat on my city Parks and Recreation Commission for two terms in hopes of one day running for the city council.
But somewhere toward the end of my second term, I contemplated the effort it would take to run for office, and the time away from family the role would require. With two young kids at home, I wasn’t willing to make the sacrifice.
It takes a dedicated, selfless person to advocate for 100,000 people, and I’m just not ready to trade Saturday afternoon family park sessions for ribbon-cutting ceremonies at the newest local business.
I love local politics because your city councilors, school board members, commissioners, etc., have a much more immediate impact on your day-to-day life than any federally elected official.
Not to mention, you can run into any of your local elected officials at your local coffee shop or grocery store. I see my City Counselor on our neighborhood bike trail often.
Even though our City Counselors have an immediate and direct impact on our day-to-day lives, for some reason, we’re obsessed with national politics.
“Did you hear about Nancy Pelosi today?”
Who is our City Counselor, Lou? Give me the first name of one city counselor, and I’ll let you tell me about Nancy Pelosi’s latest stock purchase.
It’s not that I don’t care about national politics—I do—a lot. But it drives me up a wall to see the high level of attention our federally elected officials receive, most of who will never step foot in our town, when 88.4% of my neighbors can’t bother to show up for an election that will immediately impact my life.
Local politics may not be sexy or exciting, but politics aren’t supposed to be!
If you want entertainment, Netflix has endless amounts of reality TV for you to binge. If you want to make your own healthcare decisions, watch your local access television channel or C-SPANN and be in the know.
“My vote doesn’t matter.”
Let me stop you right there.
Study voter suppression efforts from the 19th century, the Civil Rights era, and even today, and then ask yourself why so many anti-progress politicians across centuries bend over backward to limit voter turnout.
It’s because when voters are informed on the issues, it makes the politicians' job that much harder. They have to be held accountable for their campaign promises. It’s that simple.
When you say your vote doesn’t matter, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Democracy isn’t about you; it’s about us. It’s about community, our past, and our future.
“Both candidates are basically the same, so who cares?”
Oh, man. Take that same logic to dinner.
You want a juicy cheeseburger with thick-cut bacon, onion jam, arugula, and house-made aioli on a buttered pretzel bun. But you’re at McDonald’s. McDonald’s doesn’t do all that.
So the cashier says they don’t have what you’re looking for, so you say, “Then who cares? You pick.” And now you’re stuck with a Fish Filet sandwich they found in the trash.
But food is food, right? Well, here’s your food! You wanted the best of the best and refused to settle for anything less, but now you’re eating Racoon scraps, and so is everyone you know. Are you happy now?
Listen, I get it. Politics can be super discouraging. Every complaint you have about politics is likely valid.
It makes no sense.
Change takes too long to come about.
Money rules everything.
Politicians lack authenticity.
There is so much corruption.
I’m as progressive as they come, and I won’t disagree with any of those statements.
However, I would argue that everything you hate about politics could be changed with a higher voter turnout. If you think politicians are too old, then vote for younger candidates.
If you don’t like it when candidates don’t keep their promises, vote for someone else next time.
Kentucky practically hates Mitch McConnell, yet his state has voted for him in every Senate election since 1984. Make it make sense, Kentucky!
Shame has been turned into a badge of honor when political candidates would rather gaslight their constituents or demonize the media than admit their faults or apologize for their actions.
I mean, it would take video evidence being made public of you vaping in front of a pregnant woman and fooling around with your date in a public theater during a Beetlejuice performance to even consider making a half-assed public apology.
Every vote matters. Let’s look at some examples.
Lauren Boebert defeats Adam Frisch by 554 votes.
I’m assuming you know the last paragraph was about Lauren Boebert, right? Congresswoman Boebert has a lengthy list of comments, actions, and inactions that make even those in her own party despise her.
In my opinion, she’s just not a serious person. While our politics don’t align in the slightest, the issue is that I’m not even sure she’s buying what she’s selling.
But the thing is, Colorado’s 3rd District has now sent Congresswoman Boebert to Washington D.C. to represent their community twice, though her election in 2022 was close.
Congresswoman Boebert won her 2022 race by 554 votes. In a congressional race, that is a razor-thin margin.
In total, Colorado’s 3rd District cast 327,285 total votes in the 2022 race. However, the same district had 493,214 people registered to vote that year. That means 185,929 registered voters chose not to show up, allowing Miss Boebert to win her race by 554 votes.
Al Franken defeats Norm Coleman by 312 votes.
In 2008, comedian and former Saturday Night Live cast member chose to run for Senate in the state of Minnesota. Like every election since 2008, the country had a lot on the line. With Barack Obama leading every ballot in America, all eyes were on what kind of results we’d see in the face of a financial crisis.
As you know by now, Obama won the Presidency, helping create a blue wave across the country from which Al Franken ever so slightly benefitted. Franken defeated his Republican opponent by a mere 312 votes. But the significance wasn’t just felt in Minnesota. Franken’s victory helped give Democrats in the Senate a supermajority, and this supermajority is what led to the passage of the Affordable Care Act two years later.
Funny enough, the passage of the Affordable Care Act helped Republicans regain power in the Senate and the House as a large percentage of Americans despised the idea of Government ran healthcare.
Could it have been better? For sure, but today, over 40 million Americans (many of whom are in red states) are participating in the Affordable Care Act, which was largely made possible by 312 people in Minnesota.
Donald Trump defeats Hillary Clinton by winning the electoral college.
I don’t need to rehash the 2016 election. Maybe I should because I’m writing about it but if you’re still reading, you probably know more about the election than I do.
Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election by gaining 304 electoral college votes to Clinton’s 227. Despite winning the Electoral College, Donald Trump famously lost the popular vote by 2,868,519 votes.
Not that close, right?
While I think the concept of the Electoral College is ridiculous, I will say, in theory, it allows candidates to focus on every state rather than just going to the biggest cities in the biggest states and courting votes while leaving folks in rural Wisconsin without a voice. That said, the weight distribution is insane.
Anyway, there were four states that Trump won in 2016 that altered the course of American history.
Arizona (11 electoral votes) +91,292
Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes) +44,292
Wisconsin (10 electoral votes) +22,748
Michigan (16 electoral votes) +10,704
If Clinton had won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, life as we know it would have looked drastically different. Maybe things wouldn’t have turned out great—who knows? But I’m certain women would still have autonomy over their healthcare choices.
Between those three states, 77,744 people altered the landscape of American history, which is crazy considering there were 94,144,734 Americans who could have voted in 2016 but, for some reason, chose not to.
Photo by Caroline McFarland on Unsplash
Get involved!
Now, here we are with another election around the corner. Americans have a real choice between two parties whose ideals couldn’t possibly be any different.
There are no “two sides of the same coin.” One side believes in a woman’s right to choose, and one side wants to be involved in other women’s healthcare decisions.
The Presidential election isn’t the only one that matters. Even if you’re in a deep blue or deep red state, you’ve got local elections and ballot measures to help move your community forward.
You could be one of 38 people who make a difference in your community simply by taking five minutes of your day to make a few choices.
There are plenty of politicians whose personal hopes and dreams depend on you staying at home and remaining disinterested in government. Do not let them win.
You don’t have to be chronically online to understand the issues. Nonpartisan websites exist and are dedicated to giving you the information you need to make a better-informed selection.
Stop telling me your vote doesn’t matter. To make any progress, it takes every drop of water to create a large wave. Nobody does it alone.