Unlike Rush Limbaugh, who admitted he did not vote for many years before he became a conservative radio personality, I have voted every year I have been eligible.As a kid, I attended a Kennedy Rally in 1960 at the Teaneck Armory in New Jersey. In some years I have worked for candidates. As a young college student, I was clean for Gene McCarthy heading NYU students for McCarthy. I even voted for myself in a school board election when running and lost to a NYC DJ living in our bedroom community in NJ. In most years I have contributed to candidates I believe are reflective of my political view an in every election, presidential to local, I have voted.
I believe doing that has earned me and everyone else who votes the right to say exactly what we feel when the results come out. I feel that those who don’t vote have not earned the right to criticize the winner or loser. Also, I feel it short changes those of us who vote and that really, quite frankly, pisses me off as a member of a group of conscientious Americans who step up to the plate and for those who fight to preserve our freedom to do that. I am not a flag waver by any stretch of the imagine, but I believe the freedom to vote and participate in an election, flawed though all the candidates and the system may be, is one of the greatest rights and privileges on the face of the earth.
The election of 2004 was an example of where every vote counted and while one candidate won the popular vote, another candidate won the electoral vote. Imagine if the voting percentages. While 86% of American citizens eligible to vote were registered in the 2000 election, only 20% voted. 40% of eligible voter did not vote and 35% of them did not even register. Who are those people who don’t vote? Well, I suspect at least 14% or 1 in 7 of you reading this didn’t vote.
I am sure you have your reasons…you are too busy…you will be out of town on election day…you don’t like any of the candidates…your vote won’t matter…you want to protest the candidates…all politicians are crooks…it was go to the poll or go to the mall…it’s like, you can’t be bothered with politics…all politicians are the same….
Well, here’s the real deal. Hundreds of thousands of brave Americans, recruits and volunteers, have died on the battle field for you to use these lame reasons not to exercise your right to vote. Furthermore, with only 60% of people voting, in an election where a candidate wins even by a nose, the candidate does not win by a majority of eligible voters. In some elections, less than honorable candidates are counting on you not getting out to vote. They analyze the low voter turnout and run candidates they know will win by small minorities. This is how spurious minorities and special interest groups take over the politicians. They count on lazy Americans not to exercise their right to vote and run candidates.
Is this what you want for America? Is this what Rush Limbaugh was thinking about when he didn’t vote? For the last two years I have been a leader of a not-for-profit educational/charitable group, so I have purposely and ethical refrained from public partisan politics in the presidential elections.
Quite frankly, I have come to believe that the events shape the president in many instances, but that the most important thing is that 100% of all eligible voters both register and vote. If you have not yet registered, do so now. If you are not registered to vote or know someone who is not, send them to https://www.workingforchange.com/vote/index.cfm?ms=GOO001 where you can register to vote online. If you’re going to be out of town in November, get an absentee ballot from your state board of election. If you are reading this, do a Google search for your state board. Instructions will be there.
And finally, unless you are flooded, sick with a desperate disease, snowed in or other disaster, head to the polls in November and pull a lever.
Copyright 2004 Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. This publication may be circulated electronically, but not reprinted commercially without written permission of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East spme.org at
