Image via Complex Original
It's election time again (who knew?), and for many that means another chance to feign political importance and proselytize shamelessly for some old guy who doesn't care about any of us. Don't all get excited at once.
From now through November 6, millions of wide-eyed, trusting Americans will flock to local polling places, brave mile-long lines and frustrating protocol to fulfill something their college professors once described as a "civic duty."
Even worse, though, is that fact that millions more will deliberately sit out the 2012 presidential election. Sure, the objectors' reasoning is usually valid (the system is broken, the candidates flawed, etc.), but the laughable state of American politics shouldn't excuse anyone from participating. At a time when politicians unapologetically refer to rape as "an act of god" and openly dismiss a large slice of the country as "victims," your decision to remain silent doesn't help anyone.
But you've made your decision, so probably you fall into one of these camps. Take solace in the fact that you aren't alone with 15 Reasons You Aren't Voting.
Diddy's "Vote or Die" campaign disappeared. What reason do you have to vote now?
...said nobody ever. Say, Diddy, what happened? Actually, it's cool. We don't really need to know.
Ron Paul doesn't have a shot in hell. This devestates you. Also, you might be racist.
So Ron Paul's whole delegate strategy didn't work out, and now a bunch of once-enthusiastic "Paulestinians" are back to rightful disillusionment. Guys, remember the newsletters? I know, I know, you hate when people bring up the newsletters. But you couldn't have forgotten the Paul-sponsored periodicals that ran openly racist sentiments like, “Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal…"? Remember? Printed for all eyes to see in the Ron Paul Political Report. If you're so loyal to your heroic oppressor, at least write the guy in. Otherwise, nut up and go vote for somebody who matters.
Malcolm X said it's the "ballot or the bullet." You're choosing the bullet.
Listen. Calm down. Or at least avoid us with the violence talk. Things are better now. How about "the ballot or…the absentee ballot?"
Because apathy is cool.
Kendrick Lamar's rise to mainstream prominence might suggest an end to the "ignorant" era in rap music, dominated by the likes of "crunk" and big-budget thugging. Maybe we all realized the world was too messed up for us to accept blatant detachment from issues that matter.
There's chaos unfolding all around us—literally, if you're living on the East Coast—so, perhaps we figured it's time we took a second to research and discuss issues affecting young people. Let's take it a step further and head to the polls. In the age of information, a time when people carry the Internet around in their pockets, there's no excuse for being uninformed.
That said, shame on Kendrick Lamar for not voting.
You're one of 5.85 million convicted felons who can't vote.
You got caught selling bud once when you were younger, making you another disenfranchised victim of an ill-advised "War on Drugs." Or maybe you committed a heinous act that has, justifiably, stripped you of your political voice. Either way, we get it. Just this once, you're excused.
Because your vote doesn't matter anyway, not really.
In a sense, you're right. Rarely do single-digit margins determine the outcome of presidential elections. But consider the principle behind your thinking. You've convinced yourself that your vote doesn't matter, and hey, maybe one or two of your friends do the same, and then one or two of theirs do, and now we have a plague of poll neglect on our hands, and guess what? You're complicit. You might also consider that initial reports had Iowa's GOP primary in January decided by eight votes. Point is, your vote matters. Speak up, or let others speak for you. And the really rabid ones are the ones to be afraid of.
You forgot to register.
Presidential elections only come around every four years. That's to say, you had four years to register and you couldn't take five minutes out of a day to do so? Hard to believe, considering you had more than 1,000 days to choose from. Are we just piling on the guilt? Sorry, not sorry.
Voting is too expensive.
If you're one of 21 million eligible voters who don't possess a government-issued photo ID, there's a good chance you won't be able to cast a ballot this year. By October, 30 states had enacted voter-ID laws in some form, with legislators claiming that the measures prevent voter fraud (a largely non-existent issue).
Others decried the ID laws as tantamount to the poll taxes of the Jim Crow era, citing the populations affected: mostly young and uneducated minorities. Try to navigate around the requirement by filling out a state-issued provisional ballot, and if possible, filling out an affidavit for exemption. If you don't have identification on election day but may in the near future, fill out the provisional ballot and provide ID within the allotted time frame.
Your preferred polling place disappeared.
Say what? You voted at that dingy, one-room church in 2008, so why is it that all of a sudden a bunch of people are praying in there? Oh right, because your polling place was slashed from the state budget. Likely, you're old or poor, the kind of person monolithic government overseers didn't think was worthy of democracy this year. Fight the power. Check online well in advance of election day to find your new polling place. If all else fails, call or pay a visit to your county election board. Don't let the crooks win.
Democracy is too hard.
Valid point. The lines are long, the ballots nearly incomprehensible, and the benefit minimal. But if you're in a state where early and absentee voting is popular, you have no excuse but to cast a ballot. Filling out a ballot from the comfort of a sofa, where you can first research the issues on the Internet, if you're afforded such modern amenities, is like taking a multiple choice test while staring at the answer key—while receiving a hot stone massage. Vote early. If you can, avoid the lines by heading to the polls a few days in advance of November 6.
The system is broken. By neglecting to vote, you're fixing it.
Nearly two and a half centuries later, the system that elected Jackson, the president behind a domestic genocide, still reigns supreme. That's the same system that elected Buchanan, purveyor of a civil war, and more than a hundred years later, Nixon, renowned national crook, to the rank of commander-in-chief. But your brave decision to neglect the polls won't fix anything, no matter how much you publicize it on the Internet. But we applaud the effort. So much so that we describe it to friends as "cute."
You hate Mormons almost as much as you hate ethnic minorities.
Tough luck? Remember, there's always Virgil Goode, the Constitution Party candidate who exudes Southern charm and total whiteness as a Baptist gun-rights advocate from Virginia who says things like "a knife through hot buttah." Realize that nobody actually courts the vote of a racist anti-Mormon bigot, so it's best you throw it toward this hopeless third-party campaign.
You just don't like either candidate.
Welcome to the Broken Record Department. Of course the candidates are tough to like—they're running for president. Being a flawed human is, like, qualification #1 for the nation's highest political office. Suck it up and pick the lesser of two evils.
Because Lupe Fiasco said so.
Perhaps Lupe had a point when he unleashed a Twitter rant in September, decrying voting as a way of supporting institutional oppression. Much of our country's history, after all, involves brutish (though duly elected) war criminals committing heinous atrocities throughout the world for a variety of unsavory reasons. Still, if you were so moved by a rapper's late night Twitter musings that they convinced you to forgo an inalienable right, the rest of us should be worried. Do you also want to be interred inside a booty club? Have an AK-47 in your car and brandish your morbid obesity proudly? Lay desecrated female body parts to rest in a stone coffin? Answers, please.
Friedrich Nietzsche isn't running this year.
You're a newly realized vegan majoring in philosophy, who really has no idea what you're gonna do when you graduate, if you ever graduate. Mostly, you sit around and read books, contemplating the postmodern metanarrative of existence while basking in the grace of your own brain power. So many people to judge, so much hate to cultivate—when are you gonna have time to vote? Likely, you aren't. It's okay, neither of these candidates are Übermensch enough to save us anyway.