Why I Stopped Voting

When I turned eighteen I had little interest in voting. My parents weren't particularly political, though I did know whom they voted for (for president). The whole process seemed uninteresting and inconsequential. History and political teachers in high school had been boring and dispassionate. Fascinatingly (and in retrospect, shamefully), I gradated from a public school without any real knowledge of the political process.

In college I met a boy everyone called "Senator". He was friendly and charming and would regularly grandstand in the cafeteria on policies I knew nothing about. I have no idea what his real name is or where he is now, but I knew finally someone caught my attention regarding politics.

As there was a "register to vote" table outside the cafeteria, I one day decided to ask this boy how our system worked, in case I might want to contribute. He spent thirty minutes with me, explaining what I'm sure he believed to be an objective perspective. In the end I felt clearly we were not aligned in our goals for the country and promptly signed on with the opposite party than the one he represented. (This may also have been partly due to my anti-authoritarian you-can't-control-me personality and adolescent development.)

I moved forward into my adult life with a clear resolution to party vote (because that's all I really knew), though with poor discipline to learn the actual policies and candidates that would have furthered my interests. I voted sometimes, sometimes reading the ballot, sometimes not. Never actually educated. Never voting in local elections outside of those posted alongside the presidential election--because that's all anyone talked about, so that's all I thought mattered.

As an Oklahoma resident, I started to notice that NO MATTER WHAT, no matter who I voted for, Oklahoma always furthered the Republican party's candidate. Hence the feeling of being inconsequential. So I decided to do my research on how the process works. What I learned was disgusting and disheartening.

Who you vote for in the presidential election doesn't make a difference. Not only does it not matter in Oklahoma (because the electoral college gets to vote for whomever they want to, regardless of the popular vote), but also, Oklahoma's gets only seven electoral college votes. Arkansas gets six, as do Iowa and Kansas. In contrast, New York gets twent-eight, Texas gets forty, and California gets fifty-four. You can see the rest of the voting counts here. Most states mandate all their votes go to one party, even if the popular vote supports several candidates.

These proportions of federal power in the electoral college are determined by population. States with more population have more political power at the federal level. Consequently, lower-populated states have virtually no power or effect. My state was too sparse to matter unless it rallied with many, many other states to get even close to the power of Texas or California alone.

So despite how much we hate each other for whom we vote for, my presidential vote doesn't even matter in my state because the popular vote is more like a suggestion to the electoral college than a command. They don' have to listen to us (and sometimes they don't). Nor does my state's vote matter unless we rally with a lot of other states.

So what is the point of voting in the presidential election? Why spend a hours of my precious time reading about and then casting a ballot for an election that is already rolling like a thousand ton bowling ball? By the time the election is about the presidency, we are way past being effective with our one little vote.

But could that vote matter earlier?

In a smaller space?

Where one drop actually does affect the bucket?

Unfortunately I also got the power to vote right around the time Facebook was taking over the world. Via Facebook I learned that many people spend a lot of emotional energy screaming about a presidential race and single issues in overly-simplified ways. The guise of distance and separateness amplifies passion, fear, mockery and vitriol in people who were mild-mannered before.

The over-simplification on social media of political issues is what finally did me in. I could sit in my office, face-to-face with real people and learn the complexities of large systems, whole societies of nuance and a wide variety of perspectives from real humans, but then see those same complex issues pared down to red or blue political choices on a social platform. I suddenly saw how many of us use our voting power knowing only one small part of our societal problems and not understanding what real solutions would require of us. Most people vote in near complete ignorance.

I decided right then that I would not be hypocritical in that problem. I knew I was ignorant. I would not use any of my power (however small) to further agendas I didn't understand. So I stopped voting. I took myself out. I figured my time would better be spent praying to a god who had much more power and listening to a diverse set of voices that did understand the workings of the system and complexities of both the problems and solutions. I've been just listening for almost thirty years now, loving in practical but small ways. I think I am finally ready to try to re-engage with my political power.