Everyday, somebody, somewhere
starts bitching about the reasons so many Americans, possibly the most
privileged citizens in this world, don’t vote! Herein lies one red shoed
explanation.
To get a grasp on America’s
problem, it’s useful to start with our big number: 312 million souls populate
from sea to shining sea here! Counting the underage, convicts, illegal
immigrants, and all the insensible, I think about 102 million of them are not
eligible to vote. Almost 105 million voted in 2004. That leaves 105 million
non-voters who don’t want to play in our election game at all!
Unlike Walden
Pond’s Henry David Thoreau, the majority of these mighty 105
million don’t have a well understood reason to refrain from what some other
citizens think is a primary civic duty. Their reasons for non-participation, although
not in the mainstream, do fall into a few predictable categories:
Picking good leaders from so many
masquerading candidates leads some to disillusionment with the process: “I’m
so tired of choosing between the lesser of these two evils!
Our land of ever expanding and
shrinking freedoms is chock full of incredibly diverse excuses not to vote: I
have to work on Tuesdays. No habla
englais. Not enough parking spaces at the polls. They said I wasn’t registered.
Commies run my state. I couldn’t work the machine. I still hate Nixon. Aliens
stopped me from voting. My ex-wife is a poll worker. The ballot was so
confusing, …and many other such things!
Basically, their whole complaint is: “Voting is too hard!”
Distrust of the machine that is
politics, a plethora of our non-voters very simply believe the mechanism of one
person, one vote, is notworking in The United States anymore. From the
evil Boss Tweed in New York history, to the
shady Huey Long in Louisiana’s past, to the
suspect Katherine Harris’s constituents in Florida,
to lastly theunbelievable Blackwell in Ohio,
a hugely disappointed number of sideline sitters still think: “I don’t make
any difference!”
Apathy reigns supreme in a
self-centered capitalist society like America! Obviously, many are
overwhelmed by daily duties and Life’s never ceasing, mind shredding rut. Given
only a sentence to describe this group’s key motivation, it ultimately would
have to be expressed as: “ I just don’t care!”
I propose new, innovative voter
incentives, tailored to reach each targeted group, one by one!
For the “lesser of two evils”…we
get them better choices. Maybe: Make all
City Ordinances and state laws understandable to high schoolers. Also, in every election, one of the candidates has
to be a cop, a cowboy, a stripper, an ironworker, or an Indian chief! Does this sound familiar?
For the “I don’t make a
difference”…we show them that they really do. Count these votes last in
each race, and then have these voters declare the winner during election night
coverage. Then, we tell them to get a
hold of themselves, and quit whining!
For the “it’s too hard”…we
make it easier. We get these folks an ATM on which to vote within one mile of
their home, or on The Internet through Google, E-Bay and Home Shopping Network!
Then we get them all some help and some therapy!
For the “don’t care”…we
induce what few of them we can to care, and then write the rest of them off,
and leave them alone! Some such inducements that produce likely positive results might be: Offer free candy!
Declare imminent domain on their bathrooms. Use new video replay for the vote
counting. Get Slot machines for the polls…one vote, one pull! Withhold March
Madness until participation reaches 88%. Make some porno stars work at the
polls! Exclude voters from jury duty. Make a reality TV show of the process.
Get Cher to testify to Congress, (damn, they
already did that!). Make voting a requirement for American Idol. Offer free tax
advice. Add a lottery for non-winning voters.
Use subliminal advertising techniques on all Wrestling shows! Get
Library dues amnesty. Give consolation prizes like:
“You lost, but now you’re the new Ambassador to Guam!”
If any new ideas even come close
to working, it could bring 60 million new voters into the fray! I tell every man jack of you that read this
postulate, including all the lesbians, this persuaded…this lured electorate
would dwarf the now voting public with their exotic choices. Won’t you join us
in re-making the face of our great nation?
Why not progress to the next level of involvement?
I believe if there was a good
method to unite most of these groups, America might to move to a less
partisan, less argumentative era. An era in which we would reason things out in
a civilized way and then react as the greatest nation in the world should. Instead
of out-shooting our enemies, why doesn’t America try to out-think them?
It’s the next level of play!
Tags:
people world Life america war Love Politics Family voting election 
