Guest Voice: Time to Boycott Voting
Oct 2nd, 2007 | 10 responses
NOTE: The Moderate Voice runs Guest Voice posts from time to time by readers who don’t have their own websites, or people who have websites but would like to post something for TMV’s diverse and thoughtful readership. Our goal: to give readers a taste of differing ideas, not just one idea or one viewpoint. Guest Voice posts do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Moderate Voice or its writers. This Guest Voice column is by Joel S. Hirschhorn who in this time of dissatisfied Democrats and Republicans offers a idea that is sure to spark vigorous debate:
Time to Boycott Voting
BY Joel S. Hirschhorn
After many years of political disappointment, more progressives, liberals and conservatives – and certainly moderates and independents – know in their hearts that voting for Democrats or Republicans is a waste. Just imagine if voter turnout was cut to 25 percent or less! Let the whole world see Americans boycotting a broken and corrupt political system and rejecting what has become a delusional democracy. To keep voting in an unjust political system makes us willing political slaves that the rich and powerful elites exploit.
Just leaving the major parties is not good enough and, besides, most Americans are not party members. We need a bolder strategy. We must humiliate the political elites in both major parties and the corporate interests that support both of them. We can send a shock wave throughout the political establishment by not voting in the 2008 presidential election.
Stop playing THEIR game. Take back control. Take back YOUR nation. Time to boycott voting. This strategy is consistent with the thinking of Gandhi and King: peaceful resistance to political tyranny that can bring the corrupt system to its knees. Ultimately, the most effective protest is through civil disobedience – to visibly and stubbornly refuse to respect what has become a corrupt, untrustworthy system. Before it can be fixed it must be deconstructed and then rebuilt. Taxation with MISrepresentation means we need a Second American Revolution; it must begin – not with violent action – but with massive withdrawal by citizens that have seen the light. We have a good head start with about half of eligible voters already so turned off that they don’t vote. Obviously that has not been sufficient to change the system.
There will be negative, defensive knee-jerk reactions to this audacious strategy. Let’s examine them:
Many will think that taking such action violates our responsibility as citizens. But taking that responsibility seriously as engaged citizens in the Jeffersonian sense must reflect that there is still a valid contract between citizens and their government. When we vote we have the right to a political system that respects we the people and gives us an authentic representative democracy. We have a right to a constitutional republic operating under the rule of law. But we have elected representatives that no longer have the public interest as their primary commitment, nor truly honor and respect our Constitution.
They have been corrupted by corporate and other special interests that fund their campaigns to get the laws, loopholes and largesse they want. They have been corrupted by power and the perks of office. They are political cowards and mostly intellectual midgets. The two major parties have a stranglehold on our political system that no longer merits our participation in their crooked game. Political parties are not part of our Constitution and the two-party duopoly has demonstrated that both Democrats and Republicans put their own interests above those of we the people, our nation and our democracy. We cannot vote our way out of our current, dreadful political system.
Whether you are on the political left or right, you will fear that not voting will help put in office people that support policies your abhor. But decades of objective political reality tell us that even people from the party that we align with do not, when elected, fulfill their promises and our hopes. Sadly, most Americans have become lesser-evil voters, deluding themselves that this is the best, least worse, yet awful choice. Instead of feeling bad about voting for candidates that we know in our hearts are not worthy of our votes and public office, we must have the courage to say “enough is enough; I will not play in this shameful game any longer.†We must stop legitimizing and abetting our disgraceful government.
Many may fear that not voting sets a terrible example to children. But isn’t it more important to tell America’s children that true patriotism must reveal itself by rejecting a political system that no longer merits respect? Thomas Jefferson believed in periodic rebellion. Now is the time for all good Americans to come to the rescue of their nation, peacefully by boycotting elections.
The small number of third party members may be screaming: yes, don’t vote for Democrats and Republicans; come over and join us! I have been a strong third party supporter, but we must face the painful truth. The two major parties have so rigged the political system in their favor and against third parties that voting for third party candidates for federal office is a futile action. We must first boycott voting to create sufficient pressure to open the system to genuine political competition. That requires a number of electoral reforms, possible if the nation gets its first Article V convention (see www.foavc.org). With reforms we can increase voter turnout to over 90 percent, as routinely seen in other democracies.
False patriotism may cause some to think that we must not show anti-American nations and terrorists that our government no longer has the trust of its citizens. But that has already been widely disseminated by endless polls and surveys, including the recent Zogby poll that found a record-low 11 percent support for Congress. Better to show our enemies that we the people have finally awakened and decided to re-assert our sovereignty and restore American democracy. Loyalty to country, yes; loyalty to government, no. Our populist American insurgency must begin with a boycott of voting.
Proof that this extraordinary strategy can work is that by now diehard Democrats and Republicans reading this are squirming in discomfort. So spread the word, if you have not deluded yourself about voting the nation into a far, far better place. Time to boycott voting. Join the picket line; admit that none of the above is the only rational decision when the choices the two major parties give us for federal officials are not worth a dime.
Voting in a delusional representative democracy is as harebrained as voting even though you know votes will not be honestly counted – which many fear may be true. We may have lost control of our government, but we still control our voting. Time to walk away from the brainwashing and fiction that it really matters which Democrat or Republican you vote for in primaries and general elections for federal office.
Power elites want us to believe that. They collude with the corporate mainstream media that make tons of money from campaigns and want you to stay glued to suspenseful horse races. Loud-mouth political pundits that narrate the races are democracy’s enemies. We must stop watching and listening to the political entertainment designed to keep us obediently mesmerized, as if the game is honest. Without an audience, these phony races and media circus will disappear.
Don’t be fooled by the large number of candidates in the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries. It is a sham – a scheme to keep spectators glued to the illusory competition. Ron Paul has as much chance of being the Republican nominee as Dennis Kucinich has of being the Democratic nominee. With power elites controlling both major parties, zero chance for them and the other minor candidates, regardless of their grassroots support. Reflect on how both major parties accept lots of candidates in televised debates in the primary season. But come the general election with prime time televised presidential debates they keep out third party candidates that desperately need that exposure to rally meaningful support. Such is the hypocrisy and disdain of the two-party duopoly.
Come Election Day in 2008 we should party and celebrate (with TVs turned off) our populist boycott of voting and enjoy the camaraderie of fellow patriots. We must help them resist any late urge to vote, because by then millions of dollars will be spent by many special interests to make us feel guilty and ashamed if we do not vote. I can hear Paul Revere now: The liars are coming! The liars are coming! All that advertising and pundit-screaming to herd us back into the voting booths will verify that our boycott strategy works.
With having the votes of only a small minority of the electorate, whoever becomes president will have no public mandate except major, systemic political reforms that satisfy the will of the people. Either that or accept being the president of a fake democracy on the world scene.
Be brave. Stick together. Save voting for a reformed political system worthy of respect and participation.
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Delusional Democracy – Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government that presents many electoral and other reforms; he can be contacted through www.delusionaldemocracy.com. Formerly, he was a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association.
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10 Responses to “Guest Voice: Time to Boycott Voting”
Interesting idea. And by interesting I mean a little bit crazy and very counter-productive. Not voting accomplishes what, exactly? Sending a message to the goons in Washington? We saw how well that worked in 2006 when Democrats achieved (slight) majorities in both Houses and yet we’re still dissatisfied with the politicians. If you want to affect change, stop calling for useless “messages” and run for office yourself or find someone who would actually be a good Representative/Senator/President and encourage them to run.
Why not vote for someone who isn’t a Republican or Democrat instead?
Um, by not voting aren’t we leaving our country in the hands of the political activists who form the base of each respective party? I have little in common with the extreme wings of either party, and would prefer not to exaggerate the influence they already have by staying home on Election Day.
Alternatively, we can exert influence by writing or e-mailing our representatives, writing op-eds in the local paper, starting petition drives, becoming more active in party politics or by running for office ourselves. That seems like a far better option to me than voluntarily disenfranchising ourselves!
Another option would be to register as an Independent- so that the two parties would no longer be able to take our votes for granted. Still another would be to vote for proportional allotment of the electoral vote for each state. Any and all of these are preferable to just sitting out an election that is as important as the next one.
More involvement- not less is the answer.
What Amanda, Entropy and Krit said
Not voting–my god, what a terrible idea.
We won’t vote. That’ll show ‘em! Show whom?
Government isn’t a business you can boycott!
It isn’t a business you can strike against by walking off the job,
The result would be that the few people who will vote, and there will always be some, will determine how our country is run. How does that improve the system?
Nothing ever got done by NOT doing.
Get involved with groups that advocate for change, and there will be a much better chance of achieving reforms.
I favor public financing for elections.
I favor MUCH TOUGHER ehtics rules.
Choose your own medicine and then work to make the government take it.
Pouting doesn’t usually accomplish much.
I would point out, that the trouble in Washington starts with the trouble with us. We have no unity of purpose, no unity of vision. So what do you expect the governmet to achieve when it’s being pulled in several, uncompormising directions at once by the constituencies?
Dirty politics wouldn’t be possible if we, the people weren’t delighted when it works for our side. Portk barrel spending couldn’t happen unless we, the people were delighted when the pork comes our way.
How not voting would make us into a kinder, gentler, more co-operative nation, I faild to see.
Joel,
I agree with you that we need to send politicians in Washington a forceful message, but I think simply abstaining from voting is the wrong idea, for the exact reasons stated by Entropy and Krit.
We know that there is a subset of voters who reliably vote Democrat (no matter how bad those Democratic candidates might be) and a subset of voters who reliably vote Republican (no matter how bad those Republican candidates might be). I’ve never seen any data measure how large these subsets might be, but I’d wager that at least 20% of Americans are knee-jerk partisan Democrats who reliably vote Democrat while at least 20% of Americans are knee-jerk partisan Republicans who reliably vote Republicans.
By abstaining from voting altogether, we ensure that these partisan voters form an even larger percentage of the electorate.
A much better alternative, in my opinion, is to vote for candidates other than Democrats and Republicans. This could be done by voting for either third party candidates, Independent candidates, or write-in candidates. Sure, they have no chance of winning, but it’s better than not voting at all, and here’s why:
By abstaining from voting and encouraging others to do likewise, you might put a dent in the total number of voters voting, but the overall percentage of votes won by Democrats and Republicans remains the same. For example, in 2004, Goerge W. Bush obtained 50.7% of the vote while John Kerry obtained 48.3% of the vote. Even if you had managed to convince a million people not to vote, you probably wouldn’t have altered that 50.7% to 48.3% result.
If, on the other hand, you had managed to convince a million people to vote for a third party/Independent/write-in candidate, you would have depressed the percentage won by BOTH Bush AND Kerry. Instead of 50.7% for Bush, 48.3% for Kerry, and 1% for third party/Independent candidates, we might have ended up with something like 50.2% for Bush, 47.8% for Kerry, and 2% for third party/Independent candidates.
And if you had managed to convinced two million people to vote for third party/Independent candidates, you would have managed to deny either Bush OR Kerry a majority of the popular vote, and thereby denying the winner of any so-called “mandate” (it’s kind of hard to call the election a mandate when the majority of voters voted against you).
Convincing large numbers of Americans to abstain from voting and convincing large numbers of Americans to vote for third party/independent candidates are both daunting tasks. But if you’re trying to send a message to Washington, the latter is a modestly productive measure while the former is not productive at all (and would likely be counter-productive since it gives more voting power to Democratic and Republican partisans).
For those of you who don’t care for either of the two major parties but don’t want to vote for any of the existing third party or Independent candidates…vote for the only person whose views truly reflect your own…yourself. Yes, even writing in your own name as a write-in candidate does more to decrease the percentages attained by the major party candidates than not voting at all.
Nick, your hypothetical seems to assume that the effort to convince a million people to vote for a third party would draw equally from both candidates. I wondered what the rationale behind that assumption is?
I’m also puzzled by the assumption that failing to win a majority of the popular vote denies a President a mandate, or that, conversely, that winning a majority of the popular vote grants one. Democrats have rejected both propositions: failing to win the popular vote in either election did not, in their view, rob Bill Clinton of a mandate, and winning a majority in the 2004 election did not provide George Bush with a mandate. It seems to me that a President has a mandate when they win 270 votes in the electoral college, regardless of the total number of votes cast for each candidate was when you tot up all the statewide elections across the country.
I do agree with the chorus of condemnation of Joel’s rather silly and overheated post, though. It’s really quite difficult to take seriously a post that starts from the assumption that “the system” is “corrupt” and “unjust” to the point of having become “political tyranny.” To say the least, this is disconnected from reality, and I suspect that what it really boils down to is what such complaints always boil down to: “I’m a reasonable person; what I want is reasonable; therefore, if the system isn’t producing results I think are reasonable, the system is broken.” Which isn’t particularly persuasive.
Let’s all vote for ourselves.
I have never voted for a Democrat or Republican for public office. I have either supported a third party candidate or wrote myself in. Not voting is just plain bad. If third party candidates win substantial senate and representative seats, that’s revolution (and it will be televised). I protest by voting.
Simon,
My assumption is based upon the idea that if one were to randomly asked people not to vote, the number of people who tend to vote Democrat and the number of people who tend to vote Republican would be roughly the same. If one were to deliberately target Democratic-leaning voters or Republican-leaning voters, then there would be no point to asking people to not vote. To urge Democratic-leaning voters not to vote would be to throw the election to the Republicans and to urge Republican-leaning voters not to vote would be to throw the election to the Democrats.
As much as I disagree with Joel’s solution of simply not voting, I think he’s basically correct when he argues that the system is “corrupt” and “unjust.” Any system that allows the political party or parties in power to exclude other political parties from the ballot (or make it extremely difficult to attain ballot access) is inherently “corrupt” and “unjust.”
I suppose if one is a partisan Democrat or a partisan Republican, however, the system works just fine. No matter how horrible your political party is, you’re always assured at least second place.