I proudly cast my ballot this morning.  My question to my fellow TPMCafe denizens is...

Has everybody voted?  If not, get out and vote!!!  Knowing this group though, I am betting most already have or will do so later...

Mr. Reickhoff is right.  It does a disservice to everybody who has worn the uniform or are currently wearing the unform, who put their lives on the line for us and the many who have died, if we don't vote.  Voting isn't just our right it is our civic obligation!!! 

And if all the people who didn't vote because they thought their vote wouldn't count, voted as a group, their candidates would win every time Ellen.  They disenfranchise themselves...

I have voted in every election I've had a chance to since I became eligible to vote in 1980...and I will continue to keep that streak alive as long as I live.

Ellen says:

Why did you bother? I'll warrant that in all the years you've voted, Libertine, your vote has never made the slightest difference in the outcome.

I can't speak for Libertine...I rather think Libertine can speak eloquently in Libertine's own defense.  I can speak for myself, and explain why I'll be voting as soon as my workday is over.

Whether or not my vote has ever made the slightest difference in the outcome of the election, it has made a difference to me, and to my sense of self respect.  In this, my voting behavior isn't all that different from my other forms of behavior.  I do it under a sense of moral obligation, because I believe, as Churchill once said, that Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.  I do it as a civic duty...to record, at least for myself, my sense of what's right in this country, and what's wrong in this country.  I vote top of the ballot to bottom of the ballot.   I vote the referenda.  I vote the bond issues.  I'll vote for better accommodations for the bears at the zoo, I'll vote for low income housing, I'll vote against casino gambling, and I'll vote most, but not all the democratic ticket.  (I have a couple of local friends running as republicans for the town council).

I'd like my vote to tip the balance in favor of the persons and issues about which I'm passionate, but on the deepest level this is irrelevant to me.  It's the right thing to do, period.

As I said...this is a part of who I am.  I speak civilly because in my moral world it is right to speak civilly.  I try to be patient with silly or thoughtless people.  I say thanks to people who deserve thanks, and when asked what I think I say what I think.  Does any of this change anything?  Probably not.  But to NOT do any of these things would change me, and change me in ways which would diminish me.  

So thanks for voting, Libertine, regardless of whether the universe moves a little, one way or the other.  And thanks to everyone else, too, not because you think your side will win if you do or lose if you don't but because you testify to what your side is and the value you hold in it by making the effort. 

aMike

Ah; those warm and fuzzy self-congratulatory feelings we experience upon having done our duty -- and all to the better when the cost of doing so is so low.

Voting -- the last refuge of a scoundrel?

I tend to disagree.  I have no emperical data to back it up but I am fairly confident that most people who feel their vote doesn't count are generally either poorer, inner-city, and often minority voters who have been disenfranchised in the past.  And they tend to be more likely to vote democratic.

You think conservative voters feel disenfranchised Ellen?  I generally see them as a highly motivated group of voters...although this year might be an exception.  But even so this year their low turn-out won't be from a feeling of disenfranchisement, just disgust with their own party.

Only by voting can we retain the right to complain.

Here, you pull this humongous lever to the right, then pull a bunch of little ones that leave an X by each name.  Then you pull the big one to the left and, so they say, you've voted. 

I miss the felt tip pens of my youth in Oregon (where you can now vote at home). But the huge, half-century-old knobs and levers system of New York City has a satisfying, crumbling urban stodginess to it. It almost makes you wonder if you shouldn't be able to sell your vote right then and there....

Why did you bother? I'll warrant that in all the years you've voted, Libertine, your vote has never made the slightest difference in the outcome.

Funny this reminds me of the time I asked Ellen over to help me move an armoire into my apartment. It was a pretty heavy armoire but two people working in concert could certainly have lifted it. Unfortunately as soon as I tried to hoist up my end, Ellen began lamenting how she wasn’t able to move the armoire by herself. And then as I strained and tried to hoist it up, and the beads of sweat started forming on my brow, Ellen just laughed in a somewhat condescending manner and asked me why I was wasting my time, since obviously I wasn’t strong enough to lift the armoire.

Ellen was of the opinion that since I couldn’t move the armoire by myself, and plainly she couldn’t move the armoire by herself we were each just wasting our time trying to move it. I was sure there was a flaw in her logic somewhere, but somehow I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

Anyway funnily enough that armoire is still sitting outside my apartment, and GW Bush has been president for six years.

I think Ellen is just playing Devil's Advocate.

Regardless of what one feels, not voting says you are content with all outcomes.

If you have a complaint you have to vote or your complaint is empty.

Apply the "What if everyone.." question and a win for the other guys becomes an overwhelming mandate. Alternatively, if a "high" turnout is 60%, there is still 40% available to overturn a plurality of a few percent. Admittedly a particular district can seem hopeless for the opposition, but consider Jean Schmitt's Ohio district, which nearly failed to elect her over Paul Hackett, and she may fail to win today.

There is no excuse for not voting, end of story.