“Oh no, an election? That’s one of those deals where they close the bars, isn’t it?” – Barney Gumble
Math class was never my favorite, but I did well enough to know that the odds of my vote deciding an election, any election, are damn near nil. On top of that, I find the culture of voting in this country (the smarmy civic pride exemplified by those “I Voted” stickers) to be embarrassingly silly. If you’re not inclined to actively support a cause or candidate (knocking on doors, making calls, giving out bumper stickers, etc), donating money is far more effective means of passive support. Even a token contribution, especially in smaller races, means a lot more to a campaign than your measly ballot. Nevertheless, I have this strange compulsion to vote in every election.
Perhaps I follow politics too closely not to vote. It would be disappointingly anti-climactic to ride the spin cycles and not chip in at the end. (Though there is a warped, contrarian appeal to that.) Practically speaking, I’ve got to do something on Election Day and there is no better place to get information than down at the polling station. TV doesn’t start making predictions until the polls close, and a lot of Kerry supporters got a very harsh lesson in the accuracy of internet exit polls in ’04.
Whether you hate the bastards in charge or fear anarchy and ruin if the challenger succeeds, there is no better sliver of information than first hand turnout observations. You know which way your community leans, and until you can get real results, nothing provides better speculation than that kind of statistically meaningless information.
Voting is also a fantastic way to learn about your community. People of all ages and from all walks of life vote; and this is your chance to see them in one, convenient place. Undoubtedly you’d consider many of these people to be hypocrites and assholes; you might not enjoy their company in the least and you probably disagree with them on any number of things – which is why we’re voting in the first place.
Going down to the polling station serves as a profound reminder that our country is inhabited by huge numbers of people that you otherwise never see. Public, communal places (supermarkets, parks, malls, airports, roads, etc) are narrow niches compared to polling stations. Voting is as universal as it gets. Even my beloved NFL, which attracts the attention of more people than almost anything else, can’t compete.
Finally, there is something reassuring about the act and process of casting a vote. I step into a flimsy booth, read and mark a little piece of paper, and that’s it. The fate of men and nations flows from that shoddy, mass produced piece of cardstock. Campaigning, especially for high office, has become a permanent part of the background noise of life. Politics and government can easily seem like just another entertainment option, merely another cluster of cable channels and websites. But they aren’t, they’re real. However meaningless my lone ballot may be, that visceral sense of reassurance alone is worth a trip out to vote.
_________________________
Brief Note: Yesterday was the 29th of May. It was also the 554th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Sultan. The city was a shell of itself by 1453; large tracts of land within the walls had been abandoned or gone fallow for decades. The Byzantine Empire was already an Ottoman vassal state in function if not in name. But the fall of the city was lamented at the time as a cataclysmic undoing of Christianity. Those fears turned out to be just so much hyperventilating. When infantile pundits and academics who ought to know better speak of a cataclysmic clash of civilizations, I find it reassuring to think about that.
