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Don't Coerce the Vote Barry Farber He was the boss of a radio station that carried my show and he had a simple request. At least HE thought it was simple. He wanted me to record a short "Get-Out-the-Vote" spot to play during the days before an upcoming election.
I refused!
He couldn't believe I had a problem with such a mundane request. I told him I was against "Get-Out-the-Vote" exhortations and I told him why. He heard me out and then said, "You know. You've got a point there!"
Now let me try that point on the rest of you.
Somewhere earlier in our democracy the notion grew that high voter turnout meant a more robust democracy. You know: the higher the percentage of eligible voters voting, the more authentic the result.
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That's not insane, merely seriously flawed. Our democratic brothers in Australia went so far as to fine eligible voters who don't vote. The worst political idea advanced lately was in Arizona, where they proposed putting up a lottery prize of a million dollars to one lucky voter chosen at random.
At the beginning of our nationhood only property owners were allowed to vote. I want to return to that – but this time with mental and civic "property," not land holdings. As one who followed the issues and arguments long before I was old enough to vote, I resent some dim-bulb American who has to be urged to the polls to have a vote as powerful as mine.
I particularly resent the herding of hordes of politically unconscious citizens to the polls by their "leaders" in vans and buses after being drilled at an imbecile level with blowups of simulated ballots to make sure the zombies vote the way they're supposed to. As a Boy Scout I was warned never to help old ladies across the street who didn't want to go. I feel the same way about voters.
For me it's enough for every eligible voter (and none others!) to be ALLOWED to vote. There should be no restraint of any kind. Secure that, and then get out of the way. Democracy will be better off.
We're constantly flogged by statistics to shame us into voting. We're told that in Germany over 70 percent of eligible voters vote and in the Czech Republic 75 percent and in Sweden 80 percent; whereas in America it's a Halleluiah turnout if the percentage reaches much over 50. (In a New York City school board election a few years ago the turnout was 2 PERCENT!)
Shocking, yes. Shameful, yes. But we're not talking here about blood pressure sinking frightfully low. If only 50, 40, 30, or lower a percentile of the voting population has the motivation to go vote, so be it. I would personally have to be in a hospital bed in traction broken in five places, three of them critical, and no chance for an absentee ballot before I would miss voting. And I'm not the poster boy.
He happens to be a magazine writer I met in Washington, D.C., years ago who was single and instead of living there in the District of Columbia (eight females to every male at the time!) he chose to live across the river in Virginia, which housed mostly settled families.
I asked him why, and he explained if he lived in the District of Columbia he would lose the right to vote for president. Imagine! For the privilege of voting for president once every four years he was willing to forego the juicy joys of Washington itself.
I'd rather sit here and envy the voter turnout in places like Norway and Iraq and Congo than have the quality of the voting population diluted by media – and sometimes physical – roundups. This may sound too noble to be credible, but I'd rather be outvoted by voters with my attitude, but opposite convictions, than see my team win thanks to a successful delivery system of narcoleptic apathetics.
You say you don't feel like voting? I hear you, pal, and I understand. It's time-consuming. The lines at the polls can be long and slow. That fishing party somehow got scheduled on election Tuesday. There's so much else you'd rather do.
Trust me, pal. I'm your friend. I'm your political therapist. You say you don't intend to vote? Great idea. Tell you what.
I'll vote for you.
Editor's note:
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