Not voting is a false negative

It occurred to me recently that insomuch as voting is a false positive, not voting is as much a false negative.

Despite what political proponents would lead you to believe, one vote is insignificant. Because if you ask around and find a friend who’s going to vote for the opposition, both of your votes will cancel out. (So it’s better that you match up and decide on some other fun way to spend your afternoon).

And it’s true. Voting for the right person doesn’t guarantee that person will be elected. It doesn’t guarantee that person will make all the right choices. And it doesn’t guarantee that the other party won’t come back in 4 or 8 or 12 years with a person or a cabinet who undermine all of your "progress."

But—and it’s a HUGE but—voting still matters. Because as we’ve seen with everything from our response to COVID, to the injustice and inequity that engulfs our nation, to the questionable dealings of people in power, to the lack of measures taken against climate-change—many things that happen in this country are not within our individual control.

Instead, we elect politicians and policy-makers. People whose job is to make those decisions for us, and who are expected—obliged even—to lead us on the best path forward, collectively.

So no, if you don’t care about someone being elected who will inevitably make decisions that affect you and your loved ones, then I’m not going to pester you into voting (and I don’t believe anyone should). It’s your choice and I respect it—really.

But if you care about your future, or your children’s future, or their children’s future, or the maybe just the future of humanity in 100 years, maybe you should vote.

Because people with power* make choices, and those choices—like it or not—affect you. You might not agree with every choice that person makes, or even care about the decision their making—but everything is connected, and knowing or not, it will affect you, either way.

No, voting won’t change everything. But in a relatively small span of time—it will change some things—creating ripples, wrinkles and waves that spread across our future.

…

*Worth acknowledging: You might not even be a fan of how these people are elected or come to power—I’m not. But that’s worth another discussion entirely.