Editor's op-ed: 'There is no such thing as not voting'
by Joe Lazauskas '10
Tuesday February 19, 2008
At Sarah Lawrence there seems to be significant resistance to both voting and people who encourage you to vote. The absence of political zeal on this campus is extremely noticeable; in my imagination of Sarah Lawrence during a hotly contested primary, I saw a littering of Obama ’08, Hillary ’08, Ron Paul ’08, and McCain ’08 signs. No such signs materialized, but, while I voted, I was not out there putting up any signs, so I have little right to complain.
Still, the lack of voter-enthusiasm at Sarah Lawrence College is curious and worth considering. A significant segment of the population uses absentee ballots instead of registering at their college address, but still, other schools have this same voter subset, and their voter turnout is large enough to become a reason that a candidate wins a district (Cornell, for example, is attributed as the main reason Barack Obama won his only NY district. Cornell obviously has more students than SLC, but the voter turnout was still proportionally much higher to have a definitive impact on the race).
I know a lot of students plan to vote in the general election but do not really see the importance of voting in the primary. In practice this amounts to an almost blind faith in the consensus of one’s preferred party’s establishment (at SLC, usually the Democratic Party). Not voting in the primary says to the party “whoever you throw out there, I’ll support him/her.” This message is very un-individualistic and very un-SLC.
Why not participate in the election when you have the most choices possible? SLC students pride themselves on using critical thinking skills to discern the policies and politicians that best mesh with their sensibilities; in myriad classes I’ve experienced groups of students impressively informed and critical. Thus, I don’t understand why students seem willing to wait until the general election and accept a choice of only two candidates ushered through a primary system that favors the favorite of the party-establishment. Democratic and Republican Party die-hards will vote for the candidate with who holds the backing of the party; those candidates have all of the endorsement, organization and financial backing of their party, and die-hard votes are nearly guaranteed. The only way for the party front-runners to become derailed is for there to be a high voter turnout. By not voting, students are voting for the status quo. David Foster Wallace articulated this best in his 2000 essay, “Up Simba!,” which he wrote after following John McCain’s campaign for a week on an assignment for Rolling Stone:
“If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don’t bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who rest assured are not dumb and are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV Spring Break on Primary Day. By all means, stay home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you’re not voting. In reality there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.”
Amazingly, the race for the Democratic nominee did not end on Super Tuesday, and it will continue. There are still opportunities to vote. If you call Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island or Vermont home, you have the opportunity to participate in a very important March 4 Primary Day. Hillary Clinton is hoping to reverse the momentum of the race by winning Ohio and Texas by a large margin. Barack Obama could win the support of numerous Super-Delegates with a surprise victory and a significant delegate lead heading into the convention. March 4 could play a large role in shaping this nation. It might be worth the effort to ask for an absentee ballot.
