Everybody loves to vote. Come to Baskin Robbins and vote for your favorite ice-cream. Which online gaming website do you like better, Intertops Casino Bonus or Fortnite, vote now.
But with the Presidential election, some people choose to throw away their right to vote by staying home.
If You Don’t Vote, You Lose Your Right to Complain!
As statistics show, 90% of what we learn in school we forget, but within the 10% of the knowledge that we keep into adulthood, there are those hidden gems … those tidbits of knowledge that you don’t realize just how valuable they really are.
My history teacher once told my class, “If you don’t vote, you lose your right to complain.” 30 years later, I still agree with that statement.
I Don’t Like any of the Candidates
Some people justify staying home, because “I don’t like any of the candidates.” But there is one problem with this view. How do the people running the government knows the difference between the person who does not show up on election day because of the fact that they too lazy to care and the voter who is staying home in political protest. The answer is that they cannot tell the difference.
If you don’t speak up and vote, you are passing on that right for somebody else to speak up for you. But is that person really speaking in your best interest or their own best interest? As a whole, most human beings are self-centered, egotistical individuals that at the end of the day, put themselves and their own immediate families first.
At the end of the day, only you can speak for you, and voting is your way in a democratic society for you to speak for you.
Mickey Mouse for President
When a voter is presented with two candidates that the voter does not like, the voter has the option in the US to write in a vote. Mickey Mouse is always the most frequent guest star in the discard write-in pile where Donald Duck, God, Me, None of the above, and other fake candidates, including Mohammed and Jesus reside.
Because none of these “people” can legally accept the position if they won, it is viewed the same as somebody going in and leaving the vote blank. How do you prove that Mickey Mouse is a natural-born citizen who is at least 35 years of age, and a resident of the US for at least 14 years?
Blank Vote Ballot
Some people choose the path of leaving the slot for the particular candidate blank. Some people do this as a political protest. Others, just don’t believe in voting for the President.
The Amish traditionally vote in local elections, but not national elections. This is because they see the local policies more directly affecting their day to day life than national policies.
Write in a “Real Person”
When a person writes in a person who is qualified to accept the position they are being written in for, the vote is actually counted.
For example, in California, the California government tried to pass SB27 which says that in order for a candidate to appear on a primary ballot that the candidate would have to submit 5 years of tax returns (but they are not required to submit a birth certificate to prove natural born citizenship). The governor of California vetoed this bill because he said it would create a slippery slope of additional requirements to run for President that are not in the US Constitution.
But if this bill did pass (and the US Supreme Court ruled in Constitutional), it would not stop one single voter from being able to write in Donald Trump’s name, and if number of write-in votes for Donald Trump was greater than the number of votes for pre-printed candidates, Donald Trump would still win the election. If everybody chooses to write in the same name, and that person gets that most votes, that person wins — assuming that the person fulfills all of the US Constitution’s legal requirements to be President (35 years of age, resident for 14 years, and a natural-born citizen).
Summary
Vote, and don’t let anybody else tell you something else. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when?”
If you don’t show up on voting day and vote, you are essentially giving permission for somebody else to speak for you.
Or as my history teacher said, “If you don’t vote, you lose your right to complain.”
And if you are at all curious, in the 2016 United States Presidential race, 699,366 ballots were write in votes or 0.51% of the 136,699,237 total votes cast. So bring your pen and vote!
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