This idea behind a cartoon posted Friday has been haunting me.
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What if, because of the current state of elections--influence by big money and mind-searing partisanship, people decide that the elections are just not worth their time. Or what if the more pro-active, but democratically debilitating phenomenon takes place and people as a group make their intention to boycott the election known?
According to one reference, the Pew Research Center, there is now a
Party of Nonvoters, consisting of "younger, more racially diverse, more financially strapped" people. With the increasing gap between the monied 1% and and the rest of us, the ranks of the financially strapped is likely to increase. Pew Research further defines
Who Votes, Who Doesn’t, and Why in an article published in 2006. In 2008, when Obama was first elected, CNN reported
Number of votes cast set record, but voter turnout percentage didn't. Wikipedia shows that voter turnout in 2008 was "
57.5 percent of the eligible voters."
If you look at the
polls at Real Clear Politics, the numbers are kind of overwhelming. Being informed in these times can be a fulltime job. For another view of the issues, take a look at I Side With's list of
political issues of 2015.
The idea in a democracy is to have your say via one vote. What that one vote says in this political atmosphere is questionable. And sullying the election process with vast amounts of money only makes things worse. In fact throwing money at the election process in an attempt to entice disenfranchised voters to vote seems pretty ineffective.
I found a few voices calling for boycotts of U.S elections. One voice is
Election Boycott Advocates. Their byline is "Reject capitalism, demand democracy." Unfortunately the site has strong socialistic overtones. However, this point by the author resonated with me:
Laws restricting third party participation, an elections system that favors money over votes, a two-party system that has no room for any other than the official liberal and conservative ideologies, a Supreme Court that protects the right of billionaires to buy elections and politicians. Why bother, the majority of Americans ask as they throw their hands up in exasperation with a system that just doesn't work for them.
If you search on 'boycott elections' you'll find that a number of countries have done so. Mehrunisa Qayyum at Huffington Post
surveys the effectiveness of some boycotts. (Remember, this is an opinion piece.) One boycott in India is particularly interesting,
Village sans hospital to boycott polls. The article quotes a village spokesperson,
Leaders have been coming to us but we decided not to vote for any of them this time. It is high time now not to vote. They only give fake promises --Panja Singh, 62, a resident of Jhangola village
-- Marge
