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Originally Posted by highthief
People who don't vote have no right to complain about the way elections turnout, IMO. Nothing personal.
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They might not have the right in your mind (your call), but they have the legal right.
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Originally Posted by Meembo
I hear many people saying that their individual vote does not matter -- Well, DUH, as my 12 year old says. Of course it doesn't. But like a great number of pro-active and selfless acts in our democracy and our culture, it's the momentum of the doing the right thing, often for the sake of others, that matters. Any good deed I do today will likely not change the course of the world by itself. It's the collection of good people doing the right thing that matters, that changes things for the better. Same with voting (and any other form of civic involvement). It's only the people who bother to sacrifice time and effort that make a difference politically, and they have to do it together. Democracies are certainly no guarantee that your way is the right way or the preferred way of society, but being involved in a democracy makes you more powerful and more informed that standing ignorantly on the sidelines of democracy, that's for sure.
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I think the operative question is: is it the right thing to vote for someone who doesn't represent your interests, even if his interests lie slightly closer to your that the other candidate? It's not a simple question. If you do choose to vote for the lesser of the two evils, you will be actively taking a role in preventing the worse evil from taking power. That's noble. It's prossibly even right. But. If you choose to support the lesser evil to spite the greater evil, you're still supporting an evil in the end. Can the ends justify the means? I suppose that depends on the situation, but on the whole, I'd say no.
Another thought that occours to me is the fact that voting is one of many ways to be involved in the democratic process. When I turned 18 I had already been in a number of protests and rallys. I didn't vote until I was 21. Was I involved in the democratic process before I was 21? Of course. I just didn't vote. I am saying that voting, while important to a democracy, is not the only avenue of involvement or support.
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Originally Posted by flstf
Voting on local issues like school bonds etc, makes sense. But there really is no democracy in selecting our representatives when the only viable choice is the Democrat/Republican candidate. They have all the special interest money and smaller parties do not have a chance. The elections are rigged in favor of those with influence to sell.
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Bingo. The two party system is not a democracy (in the spirit of what a democracy is supposed to be), espically the one we are stuck in.