It used to be called a ballot box, I think. Ages ago, when you’d write your vote on a ballot and slide the important slip of paper inside.
But now it seems we should rechristen–okay, rename (separation of church and state, y’all!)–the thing. I’ve had this conversation a thousand times this year. I’ve had it with my parents, with neighbours and strangers and strange neighbours and stranger friends.
I had it again this morning in the comments of this post by Mike Duran.
Novelist Nicole Petrino-Salter said this, but she’s far from the first person to have done so. I’m just using her words because they’re the most recent:
You can vote for whomever you like, but don’t kid yourself that a third, fourth, fifth, or so on candidate is a worthwhile vote. You don’t have to like the two-party system, but that’s what we have right now. And it isn’t “manipulation” to suggest a vote for any other candidate besides the Dem or Repub in this election is a meaningful vote. It will subtract from one or the other, and Obama has proven he can’t lead anywhere but to desolation.
My response to her there is my response to everyone everywhere who makes this argument. I’ll repeat it here because it’s very important to me, and since this blog is a record of who I am I think this must be a prominent part.
My vote is my voice. My tacit assent for the values and ideals displayed by the candidate for whom I’m voting.
I do not cast my vote lightly. I do not cast my vote out of fear or a sense of gamesmanship. I do not stand up as a free woman, in front of my God and my countryman and say “yes, I support this person as my choice to serve us and lead us” unless I actually think and feel that the name on the ballot I cast is worthy of my approval.
That is not a worthless vote, because I am not a worthless person and my values and ideals are not worthless either.
No, my vote for a third party candidate will not “subtract” from Obama or Romney because my vote does not de facto belong to Obama or Romney. My vote belongs to ME.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
As Vox Day put it years ago “If Bush has 1 vote and Kerry has 1 vote, but I don’t vote or vote for someone else, how many votes does Bush have? 1.”
It is a part of the inevitable side of American competitiveness – everyone wants to be associated with the winner. People switch allegiance to football teams and since we treat politics like a glorified Super Bowl instead of real governance with thought, planning and careful foresight, why would it be any different?
Also write-ins. Sometimes your conscience tells you that you have to choose for yourself.
Gah, give warning when you link to blog that uses Comic Sans as a primary font! 😉
I admit I was so tired I didn’t even notice. 😉
I have a feeling that comment was aimed at me, but I don’t feel like clicking over there to find out! It IS manipulation, and it pisses me off. It outrages me. That’s why I decided not to go back there to continue the fight. I’m so fed up with it. I’m fed up with these people who have been spouting the same crap at me for the last 20 yrs.
It was. But I had to butt in because the whole notion of votes naturally belonging to the front runners was making me irate.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Jill, Katherine, you know I care about you guys. And you know I believe you can cast your vote anyway you want. Principles are principles. I believe in them. Absolutely. Passionately. Which is why there is a follow-up comment over at Mike’s blog.
(And, dolphin, surely various fonts can’t be that toxic. I use all kinds of fonts on my blog. Depends on what I’m blogging about.)
My comment was in jest. But yes, in the graphic design community, fonts (particularly THAT font) can be that toxic.
Katherine, just wanted to clarify that that post was about how Romney has navigated evangelical voters and inadvertently revealed a core tenet of their theology. It’s not about whether a vote for a third party counts. Sadly, the bulk of the comments veered away from what I think is an interesting point.
They may seem to have veered but I think covertly they ARE about your point. Because people are looking at Romney and Obama both (I’ve seen Both Sides Now as the song. Goes) and…getting more and more interested in third party voting.
I had more to say on Romney but your post wasn’t the place to repeat myself on that score. I will say here that what you portray as brilliant strategizing I see as yet another example of his friable approach to truth.
Romney’s Mormonism is definitely going to affect his leadership. As humans, we can’t compartmentalize enough to avoid it. But God is doing something in all this.
As a side note, Christian evangelicals will never find a candidate who is “good” enough. Evangelicals are looking for someone saintly, and people like that are hard enough to come by. Add to it that they have to be a millionaire and be willing to put up with Washington politics, the pool of candidates just became frightfully shallow. And when someone comes along who’s not from the “acceptable” political lineage (Herman Cain), Christians are the first to burn him at the stake when his moral “failings” are made public (even when the aforementioned “failings” are between him and God, and none of our d@mn business). Isn’t it interesting how the left-leaning media knew we would destroy our own, and isn’t it sad how we played right into their hands.
I respect that you are holding firm to your convictions. I myself have become a bit more cynical. The media and the rich determine who will be elected in this country, or at least, who the candidates will be. Last time around the media succeeded in electing Obama. Let’s see how it goes this time. I weep often (internally) for my country.
Katherine, no. I had no covert point. Like I said my main point was barely addressed. And I don’t think it was “brilliant strategy” on Romney’s part. At best, it’s the right “political” move. At worst, he was forced to downplay the “we’re Christians!” card.
I didn’t say you had a covert point. I said that the conversation COVERTLY ADDRESSED your point. Your point seemed to me to be that Romney, in backing away from claims of Christianity, was ironically strengthening his acceptance in Christian circles.
My point is that here are a bunch of Christians who are saying “I would rather vote for a box of used crayons before I’d vote for Romney” no matter what his latest version of truth is.
I don’t like the man. I think he’s devious and manipulative and greedy and I think anyone who thinks he’s going to be any different at all in how he governs the nation is kidding herself.
It doesn’t matter to me what religion he claims to be today or how that religion is similar or dissimilar to my own. It matters that he’s a liar driven by greed to profit off the misery and disenfranchisement of other human beings.
“It matters that he’s a liar driven by greed to profit off the misery and disenfranchisement of other human beings.” Wow. Katherine. And you know this how? Never mind. Sounds more like a description demonstrated in full by the current president.
Yes, it does. That’s why I vote third party. Both Obama and Romney are men who will sell themselves to the highest bidder and then reopen the bidding.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Also, how I know this is by watching Romney very closely for the last decade. Mormon politics is one of my wheelhouses and I’ve been following Romney’s career closely. I have seen him tell lies, half-truths, exaggerations and whatever else you want to call it over and over and over.
People like him right now because they’re only seeing what he says right now. They don’t look for the pattern that shows _who he is_.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
I’m not a mathematician, but I’m pretty sure you can’t subtract a vote that a candidate never had to begin with.
I don’t like Romney. I don’t like Obama. Someone once said (William F. Buckley?) that if you opened the phone book and pulled out the first 40 names you found, they’d be better representatives in D.C. than any of those that obtained their seats through election. I think that’s true.
The common man doesn’t have a chance to get into D.C. politics because the common man usually doesn’t have a million bucks – and if that common man is a moral man, he usually won’t get into politics because he will inevitably have to sacrifice some of his morals for political gain. That’s the nature of the beast. Lies, half-truths, more lies. Both sides do it.
Will it ever change? That remains to be seen, I suppose.
I’ve come to view it as voting for the lesser of two evils. How sad is that?