Why is Voting so Difficult?
I am an educated, professional, white woman of some affluence. Nearly the only thing that could give me more of a leg up in life, would be to be male. I am a reader and a podcast listener. NPR is a preset station in my car. I try to keep my mind open to the possibility that I may be wrong, and I encourage myself to seek ideas contrary to my own. I feel informed about the big issues, and have easy access to resources. Even my polling place is LITERALLY in my apartment building. It couldn’t be any simpler. Any yet…
Given all of my advantages, I feel a responsibility to consider those to whom the “system” is not as kind. To me, that starts in homes and in neighborhoods. The things we see happening on the large scale are only able to occur because of the things we tolerate and promote on a local level. And so I have tried to commit myself to caring about more than just the headline races.
For the past few years I have been more conscientious about making my voice heard and performing my civic duty at the polls. Being new (again) to Minnesota, my knowledge of the political climate here was essentially nil. As I began to research, I did find some helpful tools such as:
These were excellent resources to give me an unbiased overview of each candidate’s position on a variety of issues. The problem I found, was that it only covers half of what will appear on my ballot. There are still decisions to be made about the county sheriff, the county attorney, the MN Supreme Court judge, the school board, and more. All of these sound like pretty important local positions that will shape the cultural climate of my community. As I dug into researching these down-ballot candidates, I began to feel a growing sense of frustration. And here’s why:
The only real place to find information on these lesser known candidates is on their websites, which are mostly just filled with smiling faces and vague promises about “reducing crime” and “improving schools” without telling me how or why.
I found myself wondering when the incumbent’s experience is to be favored, and when new ideas and a fresh team may be more desirable. How do we know when being in the job for a long time is because someone is really good at what they do, or because they have powerful influencers backing them, or because we the people simply haven’t paid attention enough to vote anything other than “incumbent”?
Sometimes I like the independent candidate best. But statistically that could be a so-called wasted vote. I find partisanship obnoxious, and the reason I’m doing all this research in the first place is because I want to vote for the individual I feel is best suited to represent my values, regardless of which party they affiliate with, what their gender is, or who they love. I want to be able to vote my conscience, not vote by strategy or by assuming “party loyalty”. I want to hear all sides of a debate and advocate for that which makes the most sense to me, not blindly follow red or blue while plugging my ears and yelling “la-la-la-la-la” when other parties talk.
What about the cases in which I don’t agree with the policies of candidate A, but candidate B has some less than acceptable behavior which I would not like to reward with my vote? Sometimes there seems to be no good option, and it is frustrating to have to choose between “terrible” and “slightly less terrible”.
When voting feels like a restaurant where nothing sounds delicious. 😒
I spent more than a couple of hours trying to get a feel for the candidates and make a choice I felt confident about, but I still wound up adding people to my list while simultaneously shrugging my shoulders.
The point is this:
It’s frustrating.
It takes work - physically, mentally, and emotionally.
But it’s important.
It’s important that we make the effort, not just to show up and fill in some circles on a piece of paper, but to vote with purpose, to be accountable to our choices, to actively participate in either cheering our leaders on or supporting someone who could do the job better. If the zombie apocalypse unfolds and I am forced to explain my votes or become a member of the undead (guys, I know exactly nothing about a zombie apocalypse. Is being undead good or bad??) I want to be able to say “Yes, sir zombie, I voted for Jane Doe and let me tell you why!”