We, the people of the United States, number over 328 million. That’s a lot of people to try to please. We have different backgrounds and experiences, different perspectives, different views of the world. We see the world as or from where we are. We have distinct viewpoints that we endeavor to support with provable facts: We simply differ with the facts that are important to us; with the outcomes we wish to see. Thus, we vote for those who purport to desire the same outcomes.

And that is your right as a citizen of the United States of America: You have the right to vote for those persons who you feel will institute policies that you perceive will most benefit you. Alas, try as you might, you cannot make someone with opposing views care about what you care about. Just as you cannot make someone see a goldfinch visible to you in a tree but hidden behind leaves from where they stand, you cannot make someone of divergent experience understand your perspective if they do not make the effort to stand where you stand and see the view from there. It takes effort. But if you do not make an effort to see the world through someone else’s eyes, why should they? And so, I try to see things from many sides – especially since rarely are all or even most of one’s interests met by simply following a party. Politics is not a team sport.

How do I vote?

I do not believe in the righteousness of any one side. I do the research on the candidates. I don’t depend on the 2nd, 3rd or 100th -hand version of information – especially not on social media. All politicians cast their opponents in an adversarial light, focusing on true or perceived differences. I look to the published, objective record of their actions: How did they vote? What policies or laws did they actively support? What bills have they sponsored? What legislation did they help pass? Do their votes indicate they’ve been bought by one or multiple of the myriad lobbyists whose deep pockets silence the diverse voices of the electorate? (Two good sources for information are Congress.gov and Federalregister.gov.) If they are rookie politicians: To what have they dedicated their lives so far? Do they support charities? Do they do volunteer work? Have they successfully run a business? How are they regarded in their field? By their peers? Their employees? What do they claim they want to achieve in public office?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their power from the consent of the governed.” (From the Declaration of Independence)

Why do I vote?

I vote with the hope that it will help ensure we keep having the right to demand our consent.

Step 1: Receive my ballot in the mail

I've voted by mail for 14 years, and it's awesome. It's like having all your tests be take-home, where I can fill it out at my leisure as I go through the info.

Step 2: Read my official voter guide

It might seem like a waste of recycled paper, but my state's voter guide pamphlet's actually not that bad. In CA we have to vote not only for candidates but measures / policies too and the guide usually has a good analysis of the potential costs associated with adopting / not adopting each measure, as well as equal pro & con arguments submitted by the groups that support or oppose it.

Step 3: Pull on my year-round accumulated knowledge

Kind of like how it isn't healthy to cram for your test the night before, it's easier to vote if you're keeping an eye out for issues all the time. I read my Google news feed everyday; I also purposely click on different leaning news outlets (like Fox News as well as The Atlantic) so I get a mix of articles, not just all leaning one way; granted, I still end up mostly Democrat/liberal leaning, but I make sure I end up that way because of how I've interpreted the data, not how the data is presented to me. I also hit up the Associated Press website, get my news straight outta the horse's mouth. Then I'll check out some PBS/NPR closer looks or info series, watch some YouTube videos on different issues, or just have fun digging into the Internet for government fact sheets, nonprofit studies, etc. that pool into my general understanding & decision making. Looking for data rather than listening to diatribe is actually way more fun and enjoyable, even if it takes a little bit more time/digging.

Step 4: Discuss & debate

I have very politically active friends (I know I rant on here sometimes, but I'm literally the laziest political kid in my friend network) and listening to them is very illuminating, especially my friends who don't look like me. Many are involved in grassroots activist movements and they bring perspectives and insight - as well as data, love data - to issues I might miss, especially local issues that don't pop up as much in my news feed (Google has a Local News tab, but it's lacking sometimes). My partner and I also like to debate how we're voting; sometimes we disagree on an issue or a candidate, but we like to discuss why to help us work out what we want to do.

Step 5: Vote!

If I'm feeling lonely (or I forgot) I go walk my mail-in ballot down to my polling station and still get my sticker. Sometimes I'll mail it, and then just walk down with my partner anyway to hang out and breathe in the democracy (technically we're not a democracy, we're a republic, which is slightly different and why we can end up electing a President who doesn't actually get the most votes from voters, but anyway).

I used to think my vote didn't matter much, since my area swings pretty blue and sometimes I only have Democratic candidates to choose from on my ballot (yes - in CA you sometimes have decide which liberal is liberal enough for you). Then I step outside and see a train of unmasked white guys in pickup trucks flying Trump flags and honking up traffic; or I'll read about a 12 year old black kid getting shot by the local cops for playing with a toy airgun in the park; or I'll see the crazy rising stats on infections among Latino farmworkers being forced to work in gang labor conditions through wildfire smoke and COVID-19 breakouts so local wineries can keep making profits during the shelter-in-place alcohol boom. And I'll remember that if I really care about issues, I need to vote.

I would like to clarify that this is not aimed at anyone in particular, but more at society at large. It's okay to have differing opinions about voting (or anything). This is mine.

...

I hate the push to vote no matter what. No matter if you know nothing about who or what you're voting for, no matter if you're picking the person with the most lawn signs in your city (yes, I've heard someone say this is how they vote). No matter if you're picking the one you think has no hope because you don't like any of the options.

Oh, unless you're younger than eighteen.

Um, what? The voting age should be lower, sixteen at least. If an eighteen-year-old is mature enough to vote, so is a sixteen-year-old. And if a sixteen-year-old who's read all about the election and formed an educated opinion isn't allowed to vote, why is the old man who made his decision based on randomization?

Anyway, tangent over. I hate the push to vote no matter what.

"But women had to fight for your right to vote!"

Yes, and I thank them. I'm glad I have the right to vote if I so choose. And that's what they were fighting for, the right. The right to choose. Not the obligation. Right?

But yes, when I turned eighteen I registered to vote, and I went in and I put the X on the ballot and I voted for the party who said they'd do good things, who promised the most for the environment (because without that we're all pretty screwed), and I'm going to keep voting.

But can we stop with the guilt-tripping? If someone prefers to stay out of politics I respect that. Because politics is a mess and we basically have no hope of fixing it with one little vote anyway, so do what you like. Do what you feel is best.

I vote because, why not? It can't hurt.

But I don't love the idea of people voting simply out of obligation. And for some reason there's a pretty big push for that.

So I'll ask you right now. If you can't be bothered to put in the effort to learn something about your options, why are you voting?

Why?

I think there should be a reason, don't you? Other than I feel obligated because everyone's really aggressive about this for some reason.

So yes, voting is good. If you do it right. So please, do it right. And stop guilt-tripping people who choose not to vote.

That's what I think.

I walk into the voting booth like someone who hasn’t been to class in three months walks into a final. I know nothing. I have frantically googled a few names on the walk to the polling booth, though I’m honestly just choosing the Democrats that have the coolest names/that people online praise. I know that’s stupid, but people fought for me to be able to kick into that curtain, vote C on everything, and turn it in. There were marches and sit ins and court cases that made this all possible. Susan B. Anthony got jumped by a bunch of men and Martin Luther King got shot for me and others like me to blindly decide the fate of the country.

It’s not like I’m an ignorant or that I usually don’t try to know people’s credentials, but nowadays it is hard to be informed. I think the newest tactic of making the news and politicians so hard to watch is pretty impressive if I’m being honest. Have you tried googling a Democratic or Republican candidate recently? It is a horrific labyrinth of confusing contradictions and unreliable endorsements. It’s so hard to be an informed voter because no one is hiding anything anymore. If you tried to hide anything, it gets dragged up and tossed around the interwebs like a volleyball. Whether you’re a sexist bastard or you lied about eating cake when you were six, the world knows and you are being judged for it.

To be fair, my method isn’t unlike any other time period. The earliest days were literally a nepotistic dumpster fire. Not saying the Founding Fathers didn’t do a good job, but if the whole country was able to vote, we may have gotten some different results. The Civil War brought about party loyalty, and the early 1900s saw candidates buying the love of the public with eccentricity (cough cough, Teddy Roosevelt) and random promises to certain groups (which is how we get Columbus Day, in case you’ve ever wondered) By the time the 60s rolled around, everyone was taking candidates for their face value... literally. JFK won public favor just by being sexy.

Nowadays, we cling to party loyalty, so much so that third-parties have no chance and haven’t since George Wallace ran in 1968 when he won at least one state. There is no underdog story in US politics. Sure, Obama was a long shot but that was a race thing. He was attached to a large political party and had a following, and there were few political blips in his career that he could be slapped with (like Hillary, who tried the same thing but has been rather unsuccessful). Honestly, once that video of “where was Obama when 9/11 happened?” came out, I think I knew Obama would win.

American politics are like betting on a racehorse. The horses have stats and their jockeys are known, but no one cares. You pick a name or you pick based on the odds and cling to your ticket and pray. Similarly, no one takes a chance on the “underdog”. We go with someone because going out on a limb is a “wasted vote”. But is it? I don’t know honestly. No one does. It’s like choosing a different symbol in tic-tac-toe or getting the blue checkers out. It can happen and it doesn’t really affect the game that much, but it takes a special type of person to do it, and be successful. Similarly, people are so used to red or blue that they don’t even consider any other color. It’s a shame really because some of these people are not terrible. These politicians have goals and platforms that just get ignored time and time again.

Another part, the part that actually made me give up on finding a candidate that aligns with my thoughts, is that I can’t find anyone for my platform. The closest was O’Malley, that third guy in the 2016 debate who was on the left of Bernie and Hillary. His platform was infrastructure and gun control. He talked about a child who had been shot in the head getting a hearcut and complained about the shittiness of the roads, which was totally relatable. But, he was overshadowed for being too realistic. Politicians nowadays focus on the big topics and try to scream the loudest. Free healthcare, free college, repealing Roe v. Wade... Believe it or not, it will never happen.

We need smaller solutions. Big things are harder to dismantle (as most of this stuff has developed over hundreds of years) and pass both houses and be seen as constitutional. I think O’Malley was onto something. His solutions were small. Let’s stop having an environment where kids can get shot in schools and let’s fix these shitty ass streets. I was here for it, but he just wasn’t captivating enough. Plus, third-parties appeal to me because they are out of the box. They focus on shit that bothers you but isn’t a big-ticket item. The way public schools are funded, the way public transit runs, housing equity, he homeless, school programs. I would happily vote for a third party that stood for all of this stuff because that’s the basis of their platform and that’s what they’ll do. Meanwhile, I feel like Red and Blue are so used to screaming an answer at topics that it’s not as genuine.

I guess I vote like people who don’t watch football root for teams is because like football, this kinda doesn’t matter to me. Don’t get me wrong, I know it is high-stakes and hurts/helps people nationwide and worldwide in some cases. People fought for me to be able to vote just like they fought for my cousin to be allowed to be in the NFL and treated right and have good health programs. Similarly, understanding the way that politics truly affects everyone would help us with these big-ticket items that get dragged up around the presidential election years and dropped by December. Granted, there will always be more work, but a lot of it starts at the lower levels.

The NFL is not perfect. This is mainly because people don’t see problems with some things. The way things have been going is some of these players are really smart and aware, but others are just hustling to get the most money possible to spend recklessly and others are just so used to being passed along for the sake of football that they can’t address some of the issues the NFL has. Issues like concussions, the difficulty of coming back from an injury, the possible long-term health effects as well as the difficulty of dealing with being in the limelight and the financial struggle if your career ends early is seen as just part of the game when they could change.

But, that would have to be taught early. If high school football players were forced to do good in classes, learn time management, learn financial responsibility and understand their rights as players rather than just being encouraged to get up to that level, players would have more rights. Similarly, politics need to be emphasized on all levels. Just participating in national elections doesn’t make you a responsible voter. Being an informed voter is voting at every level because the judge in your county will affect you more than the Justices ever will. Only like 5% of cases presented to the Supreme Court will be heard by the justices. Meanwhile, an elected judge could be a hardass and sentence your kid for 5 years for robbery, which can lead them down a very negative road since prison reform is going rather slowly.

I spent years hearing that my vote matters, but not knowing which vote matters and why. We are encouraged to vote in presidential elections because you need a lot of votes to say that it was a fair vote. But, if Congress is mostly Republican, why does it matter if Biden wins? As we saw in Obama’s first term, he couldn’t do anything he promised because it was always met with a deadlock. Meanwhile, Trump is making it an amendment to wipe his ass because everyone in Congress agrees with his party. Personally, I think the way to bypass schools and shit is to get politics as popular as Instagram/celebrity drama. Honestly, it is just as juicy, but until everyone is as invested as schools make it seem like we should be, it won’t really matter who I vote for.

In short, I go blue because in the 1960s, Kennedy’s party convinced many black people to switch from being Republican (which had previously been a progressive party before WWII, during which democrat FDR increased public welfare) to being Democratic. Later, after Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act, thousands of newly registered black voters flocked to the polls and braves all sorts of injustices to vote blue. Now, I can’t imagine being Republican because Democratic values are now riding on the history of helping everyone. Personally, I’d rather listen to Biden struggle to talk for four years than spend another second of seeing Melania squint at the sniper keeping her there while her dumbass husband belligerently spews hate. Though honestly, I would give all my votes to Rocky De La Fuente (who ran as a third party last year and is a Republican this year) because we are really losing the chance to have a President De La Fuente. Think about how cool that sounds. President De La Fuente. It will never happen, but I like to think it would one day.